Working with Files and Directories

In this section, we will explore how to create, manipulate, and delete files and directories in Linux.

Creating Files and Directories

To create a new file or directory, we can use the touch and mkdir commands respectively.

To create a new file, we can use the following command:

touch filename 

To create a new directory, we can use the following command:

mkdir directoryname 

Listing Files and Directories

To view the contents of a directory, we can use the ls command. By default, the ls command will display the files and directories in the current directory.

ls 

To view the contents of a specific directory, we can specify the directory path after the ls command:

ls /path/to/directory 

Moving and Renaming Files and Directories

To move a file or directory from one location to another, we can use the mv command.

mv sourcefile destination 

To rename a file or directory, we can also use the mv command:

mv oldfilename newfilename 

Copying Files and Directories

To copy a file, we can use the cp command.

cp sourcefile destination 

To copy a directory and its contents, we can use the -r (recursive) flag with the cp command:

cp -r sourcedirectory destination 

Deleting Files and Directories

To delete a file, we can use the rm command:

rm filename 

To delete an empty directory, we can use the rmdir command:

rmdir directoryname 

To delete a directory and its contents, we can use the rm command with the -r (recursive) flag:

rm -r directoryname 

As with any deletion command, use caution to ensure that you are deleting only the files and directories that you intend to delete.