By now, you've learned a little about the structure of the filesystem
and you've learned how to create files and directories.
But just because you know how to create files and directories doesn't
mean that you have to keep the changes you've made. This section
explains how to copy, move, rename, and delete files and directories.
Like so many Linux features, you have a variety of options from which
to choose when you want to manipulate files and directories. You can
also use wildcards when you're copying, moving, or deleting files and
directories.
To copy a file, type the following command:
cp <source> <destination> |
So, to copy the file sneakers.txt to the
directory tigger in your login directory, move to
your login directory and type:
Notice that you also used relative pathnames to copy the file. You can
use both relative and absolute pathnames with cp.
Our login directory is the parent of the directory
tigger; tigger is one
directory down from our login directory.
Read the cp man page (man
cp) for a full list of the options available with
cp. Among the options you can use with
cp are the following:
-i — interactive. Prompts you to confirm
if the file is going to overwrite a file in your destination. This
is a handy option because it can help prevent you from making
mistakes.
-r — recursive. Rather than just copying
all the files and directories, this will copy the whole directory
tree, subdirectories and all.
-v — verbose. shows the progress of the
files being copied.
If you use cp with no options, you won't see
much when the command is executed. Using an option, such as
-i, can make the process a little more useful.
If you want to copy a file to a location that already has a
file with the same name, you'll be asked first if you really want to
overwrite (or replace) the file that's already there.
Now that you have the file sneakers.txt in the
tigger directory, use cp
-i to copy the file again to the same location.
[newuser@localhost newuser]$
cp -i sneakers.txt tigger
cp: overwrite 'tigger/sneakers.txt'? |
To overwrite the file that's already there, press [Y]
and then [Enter]. Don't want to overwrite the file?
Press [N] and [Enter].
To move files, use the mv command. It is similar to the
cp command, except that with
mv the file is physically moved from one place
to another, instead of being duplicated, as with
cp. For more about mv, see
the mv man page (type man mv).
Common options for mv include the following:
-i — interactive. This will prompt you if
the file you've selected will overwrite an existing file in the
destination directory. This is a good option, because like the
-i option for cp,
you'll be given the chance to make sure you want to replace an
existing file.
-f — force. Overrides the interactive
mode and moves without prompting. Unless you know what you're
doing, this option is dangerous; be very careful about using
it until you become more comfortable with your system.
-v — verbose. Shows a list of the files
being moved.
If you want to move a file out of your home directory and into another
directory, type the following (you'll need to be in your home directory):
Alternatively, the same command using absolute pathnames looks like
mv sneakers.txt /home/newuser
/home/newuser/tigger.
Actually, we've already covered half of renaming, because when you
copy or move files, you can also rename.
To copy the file sneakers.txt from your login
directory to the tigger subdirectory, just type:
To copy and rename that file from sneakers.txt to
piglet.txt, type:
cp sneakers.txt tigger/piglet.txt |
To move and rename the file, just substitute
mv for cp in the above
example.
If you cd to tigger and
then type ls, you'll see the file
piglet.txt.
If you just want to rename the file and keep its location, just
mv in your current directory:
mv sneakers.txt piglet.txt |
You learned about creating files with the touch
command and by using redirection in Chapter 10 . And you created the
directory tigger using
mkdir.
Now you need to learn how to delete files and directories.
Deleting files and directories with the rm command
is a straightforward process. See the rm man page
for more information. Options for removing files and directories include:
-i — interactive. Prompts you to confirm
the deletion. This option can stop you from deleting a file by mistake.
-f — force. Overrides interactive mode
and removes the file(s) without prompting. This might not be a
good idea, unless you know exactly what you're doing.
-v — verbose. Shows a list of files as
they're being removed.
-r — recursive. Will delete a directory
and all (if any) files and the subdirectories it contains.
To delete the file piglet.txt from the
tigger directory with the
rm command:
What happens if you didn't really want to get rid of it? Too late!
That's where the -i (interactive) option is
helpful, because it gives you a second chance to think about whether
or not you really want to delete the file.
[newuser@localhost newuser]$
rm -i piglet.txt
rm: remove 'piglet.txt'? |
You can also delete files using the wildcard *, but
be careful, because you can easily delete files you didn't intend to
throw away.
To remove a file using a wildcard, you would type:
The above command will remove all files in the directory which start with the
letters "pig."
You can also remove more than one file using one command:
rm piglet.txt sneakers.txt |
Options for removing files and directories include the following:
-i — interactive. Prompts you to confirm
the deletion. This option can stop you from deleting a file by mistake. .
-f — force. Overrides interactive mode
and removes the file(s) without prompting. This might not be a
good idea, unless you know exactly what you're doing.
-v — verbose. Shows a list of files as
they're being removed.
-r — recursive. Will delete a directory
and all (if any) files and the subdirectories it contains.
You can use
rmdir to remove a directory (rmdir
foo, for example), but only if the
directory is empty. To remove directories with rm, you must specify
the -r option.
For example, if you want to recursively remove the directory
tigger you would type:
If you want to combine options, such as forcing a recursive deletion,
you can type:
 | Be Careful When Using rm! |
|---|
| | The rm command can delete your entire
filesystem! If you're logged in as root and you type the simple
command rm -rf /, you're in trouble; this
command will recursively remove everything on your system.
|
A safer alternative to using rm for removing
directories is the rmdir command. With this
command, you won't be allowed to use recursive deletions, so a
directory which has files in it won't be deleted.
Read the rmdir man page (man
rmdir) to find out more about this command.
