Learn Bash - Basic Commands

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Open up Terminal and change to the Desktop directory (the terms 'directory' and 'folder' are used interchangeably).

 
$ cd ~/Desktop

~ stands for the home directory Desktop is a folder (aka directory) in the home directory

Create a directory called blah_blah.

 
mkdir blah_blah

Change the directory to be in the blah_blah directory.

 
cd blah_blah

Print the current directory the shell is in.

 
pwd

pwd stands for 'print working directory'. The shell is currently in the blah_blah directory.

Make the file meow.txt.

 
touch meow.txt

List all the files that are in the blah_blah directory.

 
ls

This command shows the contents of the blah_blah directory ( the meow.txt file in this example).

Add the text "cats lick themselves" to the meow.txt file.

 
echo cats lick themselves >> meow.txt

Print the contents of the meow.txt file in the command line.

 
cat meow.txt

Change back to the Desktop directory.

 
cd ~/Desktop

The symbol ~ stands for the home directory.

Create a directory called shake_n_bake.

 
mkdir shake_n_bake

Move the ~/Desktop/meow.txt file to the ~/Desktop/shake_n_bake directory.

 
mv ~/Desktop/blah_blah/meow.txt ~/Desktop/shake_n_bake

The first directory is the file location and the second is the destination.

Create a file called woo_hoo in the shake_n_bake directory.

 
touch ~/Desktop/shake_n_bake/woo_hoo

If you're already in the shake_n_bake directory, this will also work:

touch woo_hoo

Copy ~/Desktop/shake_n_bake/woo_hoo file to the ~/Desktop directory.

 
cp ~/Desktop/shake_n_bake/woo_hoo ~/Desktop 

# Or, from the shake_n_bake directory:

cp woo_hoo ~/Desktop/

Delete the ~/Desktop/woo_hoo file.

 
rm ~/Desktop/woo_hoo

Delete the ~/Desktop/shake_n_bake/ directory.

 
rm -rf ~/Desktop/shake_n_bake/

Delete the ~/Desktop/blah_blah/ directory.

 
rm -rf ~/Desktop/blah_blah/