10. Commands to Learn:

Non-Filters:

touch (1) - update the access and modification times of a file

find (1)  - find files by name, or by other characteristics

du (1)    - display the number of disk blocks used per directory or file

df (1)    - report free disk space on file systems

od (1)    - octal, decimal, hexadecimal, and ascii dump

compress, 
uncompress, 
zcat (1)  - compress or expand files, and display expanded contents

11. Examples:

$ touch newfile			# update the modification time to now;
				# create the file if it doesn't exist

$ touch 1125040096 oldfile	# change the modification time 4AM 
				#  11/25/96 

$ find / -name passwd -print	# find the passwd file starting at
				# the top of the filesystem /

$ find / -name 'core' -exec ls -l {} \;	# find the files named core
					# and show each files attributes

$ find . -name 'core' -ok rm {} \;	# find the files named core and
					# remove them

$ du $HOME		# show the disk utilization for my home 
			#	directory (and its contents)

$ df -t			# show the disk free condition for both 
			#	blocks and inodes

$ od -c $HOME		# show the octal dump interpreted as 
			# characters for the home directory 'file' 

$ compress bigfile; ls big*	# compress the file; show its new name
				# bigfile.Z

$ zcat bigfile.Z | more		# read the compressed file without 
				# wasting disk space, one page at a time.

Questions? Robert Katz: rkatz@ned.highline.edu
Last Update July 23, 2002