Intro to the Command Line

Question 1

What does bash display as the default prompt

Answer 1

$

Question 2

What does Zsh display at the default prompt?

Answer 2

%

Question 3

What do both Zsh and bash if you are logged into root?

Answer 3

#

Question 4

What is the command to show the current shell?

Answer 4

echo $SHELL

Question 5

What form do CLI commands always take?

Answer 5

[command] [arguments…]

Question 6

What can the first portion of a CLI command be?

Answer 6

An existing command like echo or a file path

Question 7

What is a flag?

Answer 7

a flag is a special argument, passed first to the command. They start with - for abreviated flags like -a, or – for full word flags like –format

Question 8

command: change directory

Answer 8

cd name

Question 9

command: list files in current directory

Answer 9

ls

Question 10

command: display the path of the current directory

Answer 10

pwd

Question 11

command: create a file

Answer 11

touch

Question 12

command: create a directory

Answer 12

mkdir

Question 13

command: remove a file or directory

Answer 13

rm

Question 14

command: copy a file or directory

Answer 14

cp

Question 15

command: print text to STDout

Answer 15

echo

Question 16

command: display contents of a file

Answer 16

cat

Question 17

command: display the contents of a file starting at the top with page flip option

Answer 17

more

Question 18

command: display contents of a file with multi-directional scroll

Answer 18

less

Question 19

command: display the first part of a file

Answer 19

head

Question 20

command: display the last part of a file

Answer 20

tail

Question 21

command: display the documentation of a command

Answer 21

man [command]

Question 22

Where must flags be placed?

Answer 22

before other arguments (w/ some exceptions)

Question 23

Can arguments be wrapped in quotes?

Answer 23

yes but they dont need to be

Question 24

what are the dangers of misplaced arguments and flags?

Answer 24

can change output

Question 25

what pattern does mv use?

Answer 25

mv [source] [destination]

Question 26

What flag is used with rm to delete everything contained in a directory?

Answer 26

-r (recursive)

Question 27

How do you represent the cwd as a destination?

Answer 27

./

Question 28

Represents the root directory

Answer 28

/

Question 29

represents the current directory or same level

Answer 29

./ or .

Question 30

represents the directory 1 level up

Answer 30

../ or ..

Question 31

represents the directory 2 levels up

Answer 31

../..

Question 32

represents the home directory

Answer 32

~

Question 33

The glob/splat operator

Answer 33

*

Question 34

what does the glob operator do

Answer 34

represents any number or chars and it used to select all options that fit a certain pattern

Question 35

/abc vs abc/

Answer 35

/abc is an absolute path. abc/ is relative

Question 36

cd without arguments

Answer 36

takes you to the home directory

Question 37

using glob operator with ls

Answer 37

sudo ls /*ot

Question 38

copying a directory to a new place

Answer 38

cp -r [directory] ../[new directory] MUST use -r when copying directory

Question 39

copy the contents of a directory to a new directory

Answer 39

cp ../[directory]/* ./

Question 40

what are all commands

Answer 40

files

Question 41

What are command files called

Answer 41

executables

Question 42

What makes executables different than other files?

Answer 42

1. They have special characters at the beginning to tell the computer how to execute them.
2. They have scripts or machine language as their content.
3. They have the executable permission

Question 43

How do you exit from an exicutable that is taking too long to run or is in infinite loop?

Answer 43

Ctrl + c

Question 44

How do you list hidden files in a directory?

Answer 44

ls -a

Question 45

Command: find the path to default exicutables

Answer 45

which

Question 46

Suppose you are in a directory with 7 files. You need to move 6 of them into a “tmp” directory, that you have yet to create. How do you do that?

Answer 46

mkdir ~/tmp
mv * ~/tmp
mv ~/tmp/1.file ./

Question 47

Suppose you have two directories called xyz/ and abc/. How do you move all the files in abc/ that end with “.txt” into xyz/?

Answer 47

mv abc/*.txt xyz/