UNIX - FILE MANAGEMENT

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All data in UNIX is org anized into files. All files are org anized into directories. T hese directories are org anized
into a tree-like structure called the filesystem.

When you work with UNIX, one way or another you spend most of your time working with files. T his tutorial
would teach you how to create and remove files, copy and rename them, create links to them etc.

In UNIX there are three basic types of files:

1. O rdinary Files: An ordinary file is a file on the system that contains data, text, or prog ram instructions.
In this tutorial, you look at working with ordinary files.

2. Direc tories: Directories store both special and ordinary files. For users familiar with Windows or Mac
OS, UNIX directories are equivalent to folders.

3. Spec ial Files: Some special files provide access to hardware such as hard drives, CD-ROM drives,
modems, and Ethernet adapters. Other special files are similar to aliases or shortcuts and enable you to
access a sing le file using different names.

Listing Files:
T o list the files and directories stored in the current directory. Use the following command:

$ls

Here is the sample output of the above command:

$ls

bin hosts lib res.03

ch07 hw1 pub test_results
[Link] hw2 res.01 users
docs hw3 res.02 work

T he command ls supports the -1 option which would help you to g et more information about the listed files:

$ls -l
total 1962188

drwxrwxr-x 2 amrood amrood 4096 Dec 25 09:59 uml

-rw-rw-r-- 1 amrood amrood 5341 Dec 25 08:38 [Link]
drwxr-xr-x 2 amrood amrood 4096 Feb 15 2006 univ
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 9 2007 urlspedia
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 276480 Dec 9 2007 [Link]
drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4096 Nov 25 2007 usr
drwxr-xr-x 2 200 300 4096 Nov 25 2007 webthumb-1.01
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3192 Nov 25 2007 [Link]
-rw-rw-r-- 1 amrood amrood 20480 Nov 25 2007 [Link]
-rw-rw-r-- 1 amrood amrood 5654 Aug 9 2007 [Link]
-rw-rw-r-- 1 amrood amrood 166255 Aug 9 2007 [Link]
drwxr-xr-x 11 amrood amrood 4096 May 29 2007 zlib-1.2.3
$

Here is the information about all the listed columns:

1. First Column: represents file type and permission g iven on the file. Below is the description of all type of
files.

2. Second Column: represents the number of memory blocks taken by the file or directory.

3. T hird Column: represents owner of the file. T his is the Unix user who created this file.
 4. Fourth Column: represents g roup of the owner. Every Unix user would have an associated g roup.

5. Fifth Column: represents file size in bytes.

6. Sixth Column: represents date and time when this file was created or modified last time.

7. Seventh Column: represents file or directory name.

In the ls -l listing example, every file line beg an with a d, -, or l. T hese characters indicate the type of file that's
listed.

Prefix Desc ription

- Reg ular file, such as an ASCII text file, binary executable, or hard link.

b Block special file. Block input/output device file such as a physical hard drive.

c Character special file. Raw input/output device file such as a physical hard drive

d Directory file that contains a listing of other files and directories.

l Symbolic link file. Links on any reg ular file.

p Named pipe. A mechanism for interprocess communications

s Socket used for interprocess communication.

Meta Characters:
Meta characters have special meaning in Unix. For example * and ? are metacharacters. We use * to match 0 or
more characters, a question mark ? matches with sing le character.

For Example:

$ls ch*.doc

Displays all the files whose name start with ch and ends with .doc:

[Link] [Link] [Link] [Link]

[Link] [Link] [Link] [Link]
[Link] [Link] c

Here * works as meta character which matches with any character. If you want to display all the files ending with
just .doc then you can use following command:

$ls *.doc

Hidden Files:
An invisible file is one whose first character is the dot or period character (.). UNIX prog rams (including the
shell) use most of these files to store config uration information.

Some common examples of hidden files include the files:

.profile: the Bourne shell ( sh) initialization script

.kshrc : the Korn shell ( ksh) initialization script

.c shrc : the C shell ( csh) initialization script

.rhosts: the remote shell config uration file

T o list invisible files, specify the -a option to ls:

$ ls -a

. .profile docs lib test_results

.. .rhosts hosts pub users
.emacs bin hw1 res.01 work
.exrc ch07 hw2 res.02
.kshrc [Link] hw3 res.03
$

Sing le dot .: T his represents current directory.

Double dot ..: T his represents parent directory.

Note: I have put stars (*) just to show you the location where you would need to enter the current and new
passwords otherwise at your system, it would not show you any character when you would type.

Creating Files:
You can use vi editor to create ordinary files on any Unix system. You simply need to g ive following command:

$ vi filename

Above command would open a file with the g iven filename. You would need to press key i to come into edit mode.
Once you are in edit mode you can start writing your content in the file as below:

This is unix file....I created it for the first time.....

I'm going to save this content in this file.

Once you are done, do the following steps:

Press key esc to come out of edit mode.

Press two keys Shift + Z Z tog ether to come out of the file completely.

Now you would have a file created with filemame in the current directory.

$ vi filename
$

Editing Files:
You can edit an existing file using vi editor. We would cover this in detail in a separate tutorial. But in short, you
can open existing file as follows:

$ vi filename

Once file is opened, you can come in edit mode by pressing key i and then you can edit file as you like. If you want
to move here and there inside a file then first you need to come out of edit mode by pressing key esc and then
you can use following keys to move inside a file:

l key to move to the rig ht side.

h key to move to the left side.

k key to move up side in the file.

j key to move down side in the file.

So using above keys you can position your cursor where ever you want to edit. Once you are positioned then you
can use i key to come in edit mode. Edit the file, once you are done press esc and finally two keys Shift + Z Z
tog ether to come out of the file completely.
Display Content of a File:
You can use c at command to see the content of a file. Following is the simple example to see the content of above
created file:

$ cat filename
This is unix file....I created it for the first time.....
I'm going to save this content in this file.
$

You can display line numbers by using -b option along with c at command as follows:

$ cat filename -b
1 This is unix file....I created it for the first time.....
2 I'm going to save this content in this file.
$

Counting Words in a File:

You can use the wc command to g et a count of the total number of lines, words, and characters contained in a file.
Following is the simple example to see the information about above created file:

$ wc filename
2 19 103 filename
$

Here is the detail of all the four columns:

1. First Column: represents total number of lines in the file.

2. Second Column: represents total number of words in the file.

3. T hird Column: represents total number of bytes in the file. T his is actual size of the file.

4. Fourth Column: represents file name.

You can g ive multiple files at a time to g et the information about those file. Here is simple syntax:

$ wc filename1 filename2 filename3

Copying Files:
T o make a copy of a file use the c p command. T he basic syntax of the command is:

$ cp source_file destination_file

Following is the example to create a copy of existing file filename.

$ cp filename copyfile
$

Now you would find one more file c opyfile in your current directory. T his file would be exactly same as orig inal
file filename.

Renaming Files:
T o chang e the name of a file use the mv command. Its basic syntax is:

$ mv old_file new_file

Following is the example which would rename existing file filename to newfile:

$ mv filename newfile
 $ mv filename newfile
$

T he mv command would move existing file completely into new file. So in this case you would fine only newfile in
your current directory.

Deleting Files:
T o delete an existing file use the rm command. Its basic syntax is:

$ rm filename

Caution: It may be dang erous to delete a file because it may contain useful information. So be careful while
using this command. It is recommended to use -i option along with rm command.

Following is the example which would completely remove existing file filename:

$ rm filename
$

You can remove multiple files at a tile as follows:

$ rm filename1 filename2 filename3

$

Standard Unix Streams:

Under normal circumstances every Unix prog ram has three streams (files) opened for it when it starts up:

1. stdin : T his is referred to as standard input and associated file descriptor is 0. T his is also represented
as ST DIN. Unix prog ram would read default input from ST DIN.

2. stdout : T his is referred to as standard output and associated file descriptor is 1. T his is also
represented as ST DOUT . Unix prog ram would write default output at ST DOUT

3. stderr : T his is referred to as standard error and associated file descriptor is 2. T his is also
represented as ST DERR. Unix prog ram would write all the error messag e at ST DERR.