Intro to Bash (Activity)

Title	Bash Activity
Overview	Students issue commands and observer their results.
Prerequisite Knowledge	None
Learning Objectives	Use a bash terminal to... Create files Delete files Move files Rename files Create directories Delete directories View the contents of a directory Change directories Explain the meaning of the special file `..` Use `..` to navigate a filesystem Get help

Directions:

Filesystem

Run each statement below in a bash terminal. Then answer the questions below (or as you go).

	ls
	touch f1
	ls
	mv f1 f2
	ls
	cp f2 f1
	ls
	rm f2
	ls
	mkdir d1
	mv f1 d1
	ls
	ls d1
	pwd
	cd d1
	pwd
	ls
	cd ..
	pwd
	ls
	rm d1	# fails
	rm -r d1

1. What does `ls` display?
2. What does `mv A B` do if `B` ___is not___ a directory?
3. What does `mv A B` do if `B` is a directory?
4. What does `cp A B` do if `B` ___is not___ a directory?
5. What does `rm A` do if `A` is a file?
6. What does `mkdir A` do?
7. What does `pwd` display?
8. What does `ls A` display if `A` is a directory?
9. What does `cd A` do?
10. What does `cd ..` do?
11. What does `..` mean in `cd ..`?
12. When do you use `rm -r A` instead of `rm A`?

Getting Help

Run each statement below in a bash terminal. Then answer the questions below (or as you go).

	man
	man man		# Press `space` to page down, `b` to go back, `q` to quit.
	man ls
	man cd		# Unexpected result.
	help cd

1. What does `man` do?
2. What does `help` do?
3. Use `man` to confirm answers in previous section.

Deliverables:

Answer to questions.

Additional Information:

Knowledge Area/Knowledge Unit
Topic
Level of Difficulty	Beginner
Estimated Time to Completion	20-30 min
Materials/Environment	Bash shell.
Author	Stoney Jackson
Source
License	CC BY-SA 4.0

Suggestions for the Open Source Project:

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