Book Image

Command Line Fundamentals

By : Vivek Nagarajan
Book Image

Command Line Fundamentals

By: Vivek Nagarajan

Overview of this book

The most basic interface to a computer—the command line—remains the most flexible and powerful way of processing data and performing and automating various day-to-day tasks. Command Line Fundamentals begins by exploring the basics, and then focuses on the most common tool, the Bash shell (which is standard on all Linux and iOS systems). As you make your way through the book, you'll explore the traditional Unix command-line programs as implemented by the GNU project. You'll also learn to use redirection and pipelines to assemble these programs to solve complex problems. By the end of this book, you'll have explored the basics of shell scripting, allowing you to easily and quickly automate tasks.
Table of Contents (6 chapters)

Job Control

Most of the commands we have tried so far take only a few seconds, at most, to complete, but in the real world, it is not uncommon to have tasks that run for long periods of time, which could be anywhere from minutes to hours or even weeks. In fact, some tasks never exit. They run forever, reading live data and processing it. A task or command that is running either in the foreground (the default) or background (when launched with &) is called a job. In this topic, we will learn about the mechanisms that are used to control jobs.

Keyboard Shortcuts for Controlling Jobs

Various keyboard shortcuts can be used to control jobs. These shortcuts send a signal to a program, which can be of various types and have conventional names. Some of these shortcuts and their respective functionalities are discussed in the following table:

Figure 3.1: A table showing the shortcuts and their functionalities

Look at the following examples:

robin ...