CommandLine.md

Command line

The command line is a code based interface to operate your computer. In fact, everything you see and do gets converted into code before it will be executed and all those windows and pointers are just an abstraction of the command line. That means that everything your computer can do, is also doable through the command line. And even more!

On Mac, Terminal is the standard software to work with the command line.

Basic commands

pwd print working directory to see where you’re at

pwd

cd Change directory

# go inside some folder relative to your current directory
cd {path}

# go to some folder relative to the user home folder
cd ~/my-projects/some-project

# go one level up
cd ..

# go to your previous directory
cd -

ls list directory contents to see what’s inside your current working directory

ls

cp copy file or directory

cp {file/folder that you want to copy} {new name or path}
# eg
cp config.yml config-backup.yml

mkdir make directory to create a folder

mkdir {folder name}

rm remove & rmdir remove directory

rm {file or folder that you want to delete}
rmdir {name of empty folder that you want to delete}

touch create a blank new file if it doesn’ already exists

touch {file name}

sudo Super User Do to perform admin actions If your current user rights are not enough, you can prepend sudo to many other commands, to do the same, but with admin permissions.

sudo {some command}

tail to print out the last lines of a file This is really handy to scan log files

tail {file name}

⚠️ Windows users

Everything of the above works in a Unix shell (Linux, Mac) and might be completely different on a windows machine. If you know how to translate that, please extend this tutorial.