Book Image

The Software Developer's Guide to Linux

By : David Cohen, Christian Sturm
5 (2)
Book Image

The Software Developer's Guide to Linux

5 (2)
By: David Cohen, Christian Sturm

Overview of this book

Developers are always looking to raise their game to the next level, yet most are completely lost when it comes to the Linux command line. This book is the bridge that will take you to the next level in your software development career. Most of the skills in the book can be immediately put to work to make you a more efficient developer. It’s written specifically for software engineers, not Linux system administrators, so each chapter will equip you with just enough theory to understand what you’re doing before diving into practical commands that you can use in your day-to-day work as a software developer. As you work through the book, you’ll quickly absorb the basics of how Linux works while you get comfortable moving around the command line. Once you’ve got the core skills, you’ll see how to apply them in different contexts that you’ll come across as a software developer: building and working with Docker images, automating boring build tasks with shell scripts, and troubleshooting issues in production environments. By the end of the book, you’ll be able to use Linux and the command line comfortably and apply your newfound skills in your day-to-day work to save time, troubleshoot issues, and be the command-line wizard that your team turns to.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
18
Other Books You May Enjoy
19
Index

Shell autocompletion

If you’re in an interactive shell session (i.e., not executing from a script or creating a Dockerfile), you can use shell autocompletion, also known as tab-completion, to construct commands with fewer keystrokes and a lower chance of typos.

To make use of shell autocompletion, start typing a file or directory name and press Tab. The shell will progressively narrow your choices, displaying possible matches below the line you’re typing on. When there’s only one choice left based on what you’ve typed, the shell will autocomplete that command or argument and you can press Enter. Let’s walk through an example.

If you’re sitting in your home directory on a Linux desktop system, the view might look like this:

  ~ pwd
/home/dave
  ~ ls
Desktop
Documents
Downloads
Library
Movies
Music
Pictures
Public
code
go

If you want to move to the Documents directory, you’ll use the cd (change directory) command to do...