Basic Commands for Dealing with Files and Directories

Here are some basic commands for creating and removing files and directories, changing and displaying the current directory, and displaying a tree diagram of a directory hierarchy. We will look at other commands in future topics.

Description	Linux Command	Windows Command	Notes
Make a Directory	mkdir directory	mkdir directory
Remove a Directory (Must be empty)	rmdir directory	rmdir directory
Change (Working) Directory	cd directory	cd directory
Print Current Working Directory	pwd	cd
Change to Home Directory	cd
List Contents of Directory	ls ls -l	dir	Linux: -l option displays long listing (including permissions, ownership, size, modification date/time)
Create an Empty File	touch file	copy nul file
Remove/Delete a File	rm file	del file
Display a Tree Diagram starting at Current Directory	tree	tree tree /f	Windows: /f causes tree to display files (otherwise only directories
are shown)
Copy a file	cp sourcefile destinationfile	copy sourcefile destinationfile
Move or rename a file	mv currentfilename newfilename	move currentfilename newfilename
Display the text contents of a file	cat file	type file	Note: Using these commands on a file that contains non-text data may look very strange.