{"id":10811,"date":"2024-12-12T06:46:55","date_gmt":"2024-12-12T06:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.webystrata.co.uk\/?p=10811"},"modified":"2024-12-12T06:46:55","modified_gmt":"2024-12-12T06:46:55","slug":"how-to-file-manipulation-in-linux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.webystrata.co.uk\/blog\/how-to-file-manipulation-in-linux\/","title":{"rendered":"How to File Manipulation in Linux"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"How<\/a>
\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How to File Manipulation in Linux<\/h1>\n

This guide is only going to show an overview of the commands<\/a>. To find out more about each command you can run the following command:<\/p>\n

\n
\n
  man [<\/span>command]<\/span>\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The following is the test directory structure we\u2019ll be using throughout the upcoming examples:<\/p>\n
\n
\n
[root@c7 test]# <\/span>ll\r\ntotal 4<\/span>\r\ndrwxr-xr-x 2 root     root     4096 Aug 11 14:45 directoryone<\/span>\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 another  root        0 Aug 11 14:41 fileone.txt<\/span>\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 testuser testuser    0 Aug 11 14:41 filethree.txt<\/span>\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 root     root        0 Aug 11 14:41 filetwo.txt<\/span>\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
ll<\/span><\/code>\u00a0is just an alias for\u00a0ls<\/span>\u00a0-l<\/span><\/code>.<\/p>\n
\n
cp<\/span><\/code><\/h2>\n
cp<\/span><\/code>\u00a0is used to copy files and directories.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
[root@c7 test]# <\/span>cp fileone.txt copyfileone.txt\r\n[root@c7 test]# <\/span>ll\r\ntotal 4<\/span>\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 root     root        0 Aug 11 14:46 copyfileone.txt<\/span>\r\ndrwxr-xr-x 2 root     root     4096 Aug 11 14:45 directoryone<\/span>\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 another  another     0 Aug 11 14:41 fileone.txt<\/span>\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 testuser testuser    0 Aug 11 14:41 filethree.txt<\/span>\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 root     root        0 Aug 11 14:41 filetwo.txt<\/span>\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
As you can see here, the file\u00a0fileone.txt<\/span><\/code>\u00a0was copied to\u00a0copyfileone.txt<\/span><\/code>; however the permissions were set to be owned by\u00a0root<\/span><\/code>\u00a0and part of the group\u00a0root<\/span><\/code>.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
[root@c7 test]# <\/span>whoami\r\nroot<\/span>\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
This is because we\u2019re logged in as the\u00a0root<\/span><\/code>\u00a0user. If you want to maintain the permissions, you need to use the\u00a0-p<\/span><\/code>\u00a0flag.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
[root@c7 test]# <\/span>ll\r\ntotal 4<\/span>\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 another  another     0 Aug 11 14:41 copyfileone.txt<\/span>\r\ndrwxr-xr-x 2 root     root     4096 Aug 11 14:45 directoryone<\/span>\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 another  another     0 Aug 11 14:41 fileone.txt<\/span>\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 testuser testuser    0 Aug 11 14:41 filethree.txt<\/span>\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 root     root        0 Aug 11 14:41 filetwo.txt<\/span>\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
You can copy directories in the same manner but running just\u00a0cp<\/span>\u00a0directoryone<\/span>\u00a0copydirectoryone<\/span><\/code>\u00a0will just copy the directory itself but none of its contents. To copy the contents as well you need to pass the\u00a0-R<\/span><\/code>\u00a0flag. The\u00a0-p<\/span><\/code>\u00a0and\u00a0-R<\/span><\/code>\u00a0flag can be combined to the\u00a0-a<\/span><\/code>\u00a0flag.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
[root@c7 test]# <\/span>cp -a directoryone copydirectoryone\r\n[root@c7 test]# <\/span>ll\r\ntotal 8<\/span>\r\ndrwxr-xr-x 2 root     root     4096 Aug 11 14:45 copydirectoryone<\/span>\r\n-rw------- 1 root     root        0 Aug 11 14:54 copyfileone.txt<\/span>\r\ndrwxr-xr-x 2 root     root     4096 Aug 11 14:45 directoryone<\/span>\r\n-rw------- 1 another  another     0 Aug 11 14:41 fileone.txt<\/span>\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 testuser testuser    0 Aug 11 14:41 filethree.txt<\/span>\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 root     root        0 Aug 11 14:41 filetwo.txt<\/span>\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
\n
mv<\/span><\/code><\/h2>\n
The move command is used to move or rename a file.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
[root@c7 test]# <\/span>mv filetwo.txt directoryone\r\n[root@c7 test]# <\/span>ll directoryone\/\r\ntotal 0<\/span>\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Aug 11 14:41 filetwo.txt<\/span>\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Here\u00a0filetwo.txt<\/span><\/code>\u00a0has been moved to\u00a0directoryone<\/span><\/code>.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
[root@c7 test]# <\/span>mv copyfileone.txt renamedcopy.txt\r\n[root@c7 test]# <\/span>ll\r\ntotal 8<\/span>\r\ndrwxr-xr-x 2 root     root     4096 Aug 11 14:45 copydirectoryone<\/span>\r\ndrwxr-xr-x 2 root     root     4096 Aug 11 14:58 directoryone<\/span>\r\n-rw------- 1 another  another     0 Aug 11 14:41 fileone.txt<\/span>\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 testuser testuser    0 Aug 11 14:41 filethree.txt<\/span>\r\n-rw------- 1 root     root        0 Aug 11 14:54 renamedcopy.txt<\/span>\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Here the file\u00a0copyfileone.txt<\/span><\/code>\u00a0has been renamed to\u00a0renamedcopy.txt<\/span><\/code><\/p>\n<\/section>\n
\n
rm<\/span><\/code><\/h2>\n
rm<\/span><\/code>\u00a0is used to delete files and directories.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
[root@c7 test]# <\/span>rm renamedcopy.txt\r\nrm: remove regular empty file 'renamedcopy.txt'? y<\/span>\r\n[root@c7 test]# <\/span>ll\r\ntotal 8<\/span>\r\ndrwxr-xr-x 2 root     root     4096 Aug 11 14:45 copydirectoryone<\/span>\r\ndrwxr-xr-x 2 root     root     4096 Aug 11 14:58 directoryone<\/span>\r\n-rw------- 1 another  another     0 Aug 11 14:41 fileone.txt<\/span>\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 testuser testuser    0 Aug 11 14:41 filethree.txt<\/span>\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Here the file\u00a0renamedcopy.txt<\/span><\/code>\u00a0is deleted. As you can see, there is a prompt for this. This can be overridden with the\u00a0-f<\/span><\/code>\u00a0flag.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
[root@c7 test]# <\/span>rm -f renamedcopy.txt\r\n[root@c7 test]# <\/span>ll\r\ntotal 8<\/span>\r\ndrwxr-xr-x 2 root     root     4096 Aug 11 14:45 copydirectoryone<\/span>\r\ndrwxr-xr-x 2 root     root     4096 Aug 11 14:58 directoryone<\/span>\r\n-rw------- 1 another  another     0 Aug 11 14:41 fileone.txt<\/span>\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 testuser testuser    0 Aug 11 14:41 filethree.txt<\/span>\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
To delete a directory you need to pass the\u00a0-R<\/span><\/code>\u00a0flag.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
[root@c7 test]# <\/span>rm -R directoryone\r\nrm: descend into directory 'directoryone'? y<\/span>\r\nrm: remove regular empty file 'directoryone\/filetwo.txt'? y<\/span>\r\nrm: remove directory 'directoryone'? y<\/span>\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Again, this prompts you. You can override this by using\u00a0-Rf<\/span><\/code>.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
[root@c7 test]# <\/span>rm -Rf directoryone\/\r\n[root@c7 test]# <\/span>ll\r\ntotal 4<\/span>\r\ndrwxr-xr-x 2 root     root     4096 Aug 11 14:45 copydirectoryone<\/span>\r\n-rw------- 1 another  another     0 Aug 11 14:41 fileone.txt<\/span>\r\n-rw-r--r-- 1 testuser testuser    0 Aug 11 14:41 filethree.txt<\/span>\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
It is possible to add the\u00a0*<\/span><\/code>\u00a0on the end of the\u00a0rm<\/span>\u00a0-Rf<\/span><\/code>\u00a0command; however, we would advise you never to do this as if this command is run in the \/ folder on your server, this will cause all the contents of the server to be deleted. Instead, if you want to delete a directory, you should specify the directory.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
[root@c7 ~]# <\/span>rm -Rf \/root\/test<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
  How to File Manipulation in Linux This guide is only going to show an overview of the commands. To find out more about each command you can run the following command: man [command] The following is the test directory structure we\u2019ll be using throughout the upcoming examples: [root@c7 test]# ll total 4 drwxr-xr-x 2 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webystrata.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webystrata.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webystrata.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webystrata.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webystrata.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10811"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.webystrata.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10816,"href":"https:\/\/www.webystrata.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10811\/revisions\/10816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webystrata.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webystrata.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webystrata.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webystrata.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}