Basic mac commands in terminal

So, to learn more about a command type man [name of command] , where "command" is the name of the command you want find out more about. Firstly, every character matters, including spaces.

How to open the command line.

If you want to re-run a command, tap the up arrow key until you reach it, then press Return. Commands are always executed in the current location. Use the cd command, followed by a directory path, like in Step 1 above, to specify the folder where you want a command to run.

There is another way to specify a location: Now save it to the TerminalTest folder in your Documents folder. Now type ls and you should see "TerminalTestFile" listed. That will change the name of the file to "TerminalTestFile2". You can, of course, use any name you like. The mv command means "move" and you can also use it to move files from one directory to another. Terminal can be used for all sorts of different tasks.

Some of them can be performed in the Finder, but are quicker in Terminal. Here are a few examples. In a Terminal window, type d itto [folder 1] [folder 1] where "folder 1" is the folder that hosts the files and "folder 2" is the folder you want to move them to. To see the files being copied in the Terminal window, type -v after the command.

Press h to open a hovercard with more details. Translates into French. Jan 4, Update korean translation. Feb 24, Sep 18, Russian translation added. Oct 10, Merge branch 'master' into master.

Jan 20, Go to the beginning of the line you are currently typing on. Netbeans being one exception. This is the system as a whole. This is both the command line as well as the output from previous commands. This is the beginning of the command line. It usually provides some contextual information like who you are, where you are and other useful info. After the prompt is where you will be typing commands. This is the actual interface to the console.

Nearly all commands follow a common pattern with 3 main parts. The program, the options, and the arguments.

Type the code above. This is a common convention used is denote what follows is a command to be run. Once you have typed it out, hit enter to run it, and see what happens. The program is the verb. It describes what you want to do. Options are like the adverb.

They usually modify the way the program will run. In our example -l is an option. Without this option, the list will be simply the filenames. When we modify the command with -l , it will display to us the files along with more detailed information. Options are just that: Any command should have some default behavior when called without options. Most often the order of the options do not matter, but occasionally they may. These are the objects of our sentence. They describe what we want our command to act on.

So we are saying we want to list all of our files in our home folder. Some programs may not need arguments. For instance, without arguments, ls will list the files in the directory you are currently in. More on that later. Again, each program has different arguments, and the order of the arguments typically matter. In the console, you are always working in a directory, or folder, on your computer. We call this your working directory.

You can see where you are using pwd short for print working directory. This command will print out your current location. You can change your directory with cd short for change directory. If you pass it an argument, it will change your to that location, if it exists.

This is relative path, because I specified my destination relative to my current directory. Even when you learn what commands you can use, there is still a lot of power in each command or program. There are often dozens of available options, and depending on your arguments, your command could behave in several different ways.

Fortunately, most commands have a manual. To read, use the man command. For instance to learn more about ls , run.