File and Directory Operations

In Linux's powerful command-line interface, there are numerous commands to work with files and directories. In this section, you will learn how to create, copy, move, delete, and search for files and directories. Additionally, we will look at some basic commands used to change file and directory permissions.

Creating Files and Directories

In Linux, the touch command is used to create files. This command can also be used to update the access and modification times of existing files, but if the file specified does not exist, it will create a new empty file.

user@hackerbox:~$ touch readme.txt

The command above creates an empty file named readme.txt in your current directory.

To create directories, use the mkdir(make directory) command.

user@hackerbox:~$ mkdir documents

This command creates a new directory named documents.

Copying Files and Directories

To copy files, the cp command is used. The general usage of the command iscp source_file target_file.

user@hackerbox:~$ cp readme.txt readme_copy.txt

This command creates a copy of readme.txt named readme_copy.txt.

When copying directories, you must use the -r(recursive) option, which ensures that all subdirectories and files within the directory are also copied.

user@hackerbox:~$ cp -r documents documents_copy

This command copies the documents directory and all its contents to a new directory named documents_copy.

Moving or Renaming Files and Directories

To move or rename files and directories, use the mv command. This command can move files and directories to a new location or rename them.

user@hackerbox:~$ mv readme_copy.txt readme_moved.txt

This command renames the file readme_copy.txt to readme_moved.txt.

user@hackerbox:~$ mv readme_moved.txt documents/

This command moves readme_moved.txt to the documents directory.

Deleting Files and Directories

To delete files, use the rm(remove) command.

user@hackerbox:~$ rm readme_moved.txt

This command deletes the file readme_moved.txt.

To delete directories, you can use the rm -r command. This command deletes the directory along with its contents.

user@hackerbox:~$ rm -r documents

This command deletes the documents directory and its contents.