Overview

UNIX possesses numerous commands and utilities for the creation, modification, and display of files and directories. Table 4.1, a summary of file management commands, was created from the headers of the man page entries for all sections of the BSD documentation (see Section 3.6). Table 4.1 divides the commands into those that display files and those that manipulate them. Since display commands do not change the contents of files, the novice user may use them in complete safety. Manipulation commands do change the contents of files, and novice users should use them with care.

Like a spoken language, UNIX allows successful communication using only a limited vocabulary. This chapter concentrates on commands and a few options that the novice user will likely need in the first few terminal sessions. Remaining chapters introduce additional commands and options that, although used less frequently, and richness and functionality to the language. Our focus is commands rather than callable C language routines or utilities. The following chapters deal with important utilities in the context of application development; callable routines are beyond the scope of this book. Table 4.2 summarizes the directory and file commands discussed (see Appendix A for a more complete set of commands) and indicates where to find them in this book.

We deal here only with the traditional command line interface for file manipulation. Most commands discussed in...