Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
48 lines (35 loc) · 3.1 KB

CommandLine.md

File metadata and controls

48 lines (35 loc) · 3.1 KB

Using the Command Line / Terminals

Read this article for a more in-depth understanding: Command Line Introduction

Very often, you'll see programmers using the command line to run programs and/or execute different actions on their computers. One common use of the command line is to navigate the files and folders of a computer without the use of the graphical user interface.

  • Graphical User Interface (GUI) - a way to interact with the computer by physically seeing the files and folders (i.e. image of a folder)

With the command line, we don't exactly get to see images of the files and folders. The only thing we get is text.

Command Line vs. Terminal

You will likely hear folks refer to a "terminal" in addition to the command line. The article provided above has a pretty good explanation of the differences between the two (just search for 'Side Note: what's the difference between a command line and a terminal?' and it should lead you to that section) — but the terminal is essentially the window that the command line sits inside of.

Terminals in Different Operating Systems

See this section of the article for more information on how to open up terminals in different systems. Linux/Unix and MacOS systems tend to be easier to work with, but it is possible to get things up and running on Windows machines.

Commands

When in a terminal, we are able to execute commands. Commands are used to execute a specific action, whether it be for navigating, creating, deleting, or seeing what's in a folder.

Before we get into commands, you have to understand one simple thing: the location of a file or folder can be typed by using the folder names and '/'. For instance, here is the path to get to a file example.txt that is within a folder examples

examples/example.txt

Now, here are some common commands:

cd <file route>

  • This allows us to change folder location in the terminal.
  • cd stands for change directory. Directory is another word we use for a folder.
  • The route passed in depends on your current location in the folders.
  • cd ~ brings you back to the home directory.
  • cd .. moves you 1 directory up. It's how you go backwards.

ls

  • This allows you to see what files and folders are within a folder.
  • It is useful when you need to get into a folder, but you forgot it's name or something similar.

touch <file name>

  • This allows us to create a file along with it's extension (i.e. .js, .rb, .jpeg).
  • This file will be created based on your location in the folders.

mkdir <folder name>

  • This allows us to create a folder/directory.
  • mkdir stands for make directory.

rm <file or folder name>

  • This deletes a file or folder.
  • Be careful when using this command.

There are many more commands: Click here if you want to see a cheat sheet of them.