Introducing UNIX and Linux

Files

Overview
The UNIX directory hierarchy
Filesystems
Manipulating files
      Creating directories
      Creating files
      links
      'Dot' files
Protecting files
      Groups
      File access control
      Changing privileges
File contents
      Text files
      Comparing files
      Filtering files
      Non-text files
Printing files
File archives and file compression
Other relevant commands
Summary
Exercises

Manipulating files

There are lots of things you can do with a file. You can create, destroy, rename and copy it, and you can protect it so that only certain users have access to its contents. These simple actions have corresponding UNIX commands, which are generally simple. Directories contain information about files other than themselves, unlike ordinary files, and operations on them are in consequence more complex. We shall start by looking at directories.