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We'll see about how we can navigate around the file system using bash commands.
First thing, we need to know is where we are in the file system.
We call that directory as current directory or working directory.
To find out the working directory, we can use pwd
command.
santhosh@ubuntu:~$ pwd
/home/santhosh
Full form of
pwd
is Print Working Directory .
Lot of bash commands are abbreviations. So it is easy to remember.
we can see the files and folders are under the current directory by using the ls
command.
santhosh@ubuntu-18-04:~$ ls
Dev Documents Downloads
ls
is short for list.
We can also provide arguments to bash commands which makes it more powerfull.
to see the hidden files, use ls -a
santhosh@ubuntu-18-04:~$ ls -a
Dev Documents Downloads .bash_history
Refer the manual of
ls
for more arguments
We can move around the system using cd
command.
santhosh@ubuntu-18-04:~$ cd Documents
santhosh@ubuntu-18-04:~/Documents$ _
To move to parent directory
santhosh@ubuntu-18-04:~/Documents$ cd ..
santhosh@ubuntu-18-04:~$ _
..
(double dot) is reference to the parent directory.
.
(single dot) is reference to the current directory.
~
is reference to the home directory.
/
is reference to the root directory.
if we run cd
command without any argument, we will move to the home directory irrespective of working directory.
Command line can autocomplete our command and paths with
tab
key. You can try it yourself.
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