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)

Summary

We have introduced a lot of material in this first chapter, which is probably quite novel to anyone approaching the command line for the first time. Even in this brief exploration, we can start to see how seemingly complicated filesystem tasks can be completed with minimal effort.

In the coming chapter, we will add to our toolbox of useful shell programs that process text data. In later chapters, we will learn about the mechanisms to tie these commands together, such as piping and redirection, to perform complex data-processing tasks. We will also learn about regular expressions and shell expansion constructs that let us manipulate textual data in powerful ways.