Command Line

Session 02

Slides Chapter Exercises

This session

In this session, you will work on the following tasks:

1. Reading: Read the chapter(s) Command Line in the Version Control Book.
2. Implementation: Try out the commands in the chapter.
3. Exercises: Work on the exercises for the city-guide project.
4. Quiz: Test your knowledge with the quiz.

As always:

1. Try out the commands of this session and play around with them.
2. Check whether you have achieved the learning objectives.
3. Ask questions!
4. Let’s git started!

Learning objectives

At the end of this session, you should be able to answer the following questions and / or achieve the following learning objectives:

💡 You can navigate directories using the command line.
💡 You can use shortcuts like the tilde or dots to navigate your file system.
💡 You can explain the difference between absolute and relative paths.
💡 You can use arguments and flags to modify command-line commands.
💡 You understand the concept of wild cards (*) and can use it for system navigation.

city-guide project

At the end of this session, you should have accomplished the following:

1. You used the command line to create a folder on your computer called city-guide.
2. You used the command line to create a file called city-guide.txt inside the city-guide folder.

Please keep the city-guide folder! We will continue to use it in the following sessions.

Slides

How can I download the slides as PDF?

To print the slides to PDF, do the following:

1. Toggle into Print View using the E key (or using the Navigation Menu).
2. Open the in-browser print dialog (CTRL/CMD+P).
3. Change the Destination setting to Save as PDF.
4. Change the Layout to Landscape.
5. Change the Margins to None.
6. Enable the Background graphics option.
7. Click Save.

Note: This feature has been confirmed to work in Google Chrome, Chromium as well as in Firefox.

Here’s what the Chrome print dialog would look like with these settings enabled:

These instructions were copied from the Quarto documentation (MIT License) and slightly modified.

Cheatsheet

Command	Description
pwd	Displays the path of the current working directory
cd <PATH>	Changes the current working directory to <PATH>
cd ~	Changes the current working directory to the user’s home directory
cd ..	Moves up one folder
cd ../..	Moves up two folders
clear	Clears the contents of your command line window
ls	Lists files and folders in the current working directory
ls <PATH>	Lists files and folders in <PATH>
ls -a	Lists all files (including hidden files) in the current working directory
ls -alh	Lists all files in a long format that is easy to read for humans
[Command] --help	Displays all possible flags for a specific command (on Windows)
man [Command]	Displays all possible flags for a specific command (on macOS)
mkdir <FOLDER>	Creates a new folder called <FOLDER>
mkdir <FOLDER1> <FOLDER2>	Creates two separate folders called <FOLDER1> and <FOLDER2>
touch <FILE>	Creates a new empty file called <FILE>
open <FILE>	Opens the file called <FILE> (on macOS)
start <FILE>	Opens the file called <FILE> (on Windows)
echo "example text" >> file.txt	Writes “example text” into file.txt
cat <FILE>	Displays the content of <FILE>
mv FILE.txt <FOLDER>	Move FILE.txt into <FOLDER>
mv <FOLDER_OLD> <FOLDER_NEW>	Renames <FOLDER_OLD> to <FOLDER_NEW>
ls -alh *.csv	Uses a wildcard to list all .csv files in the current working directory
rm -r <FOLDER>	Removes the folder <FOLDER>
history	Display the command history of the current terminal session
history > history.txt	Saves the entire command history to a file named history.txt (overwrites existing content in history.txt)
history >> history.txt	Adds the entire command history to the end of the file named history.txt
tree	Displays a graphical representation of the directory structure
wget <URL>	Downloads a file from the specified to the current directory