Text Files

file – Verifying file type

Before using the commands on this page, you want to make sure the files you are working with are text files. To do this, use the command file. If the file you select is not a text file the commands will not work correctly and can mess up your display screen.
Example: file /etc/passwd will respond back with ASCII or Text file.


| – Pipe Utility

Many of the following commands will display more than one screenful of information. This makes it impossible to read the beginning of the displayed data.  The less command automatically displays data one page at a time. By using the pipe command you send the output to less to control screen paging. To pipe the results of a command to another command, the vertical bar | character is used.
Example: sort /etc/passwd | less Will sort the file ‘/etc/passwd’ and display the results one screen at a time using the command ‘less’
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Displaying Files

less

To display a text file, use the less command.

Example: less /etc/passwd

Once you have the text displayed, there are several other options you can use to move forward and backward and to search for patterns.

Command What it does
page down, spacebar, or f Scroll forward one page
page up or b Scroll backward one page
down arrow, RETURN or ENTER Down one line
up arrow, y or k Up one line
G Jump to last line of file
g Jump to first line of file
/<pattern> Search forward to find matching text. Example: /root – Will find next occurrence of root
?<pattern> Search backward to find matching text
n Search in same direction as last search for matching text
N Search in opposite direction of last search for matching text
h display list of commands to use
q Exit

cat

To display the entire file without having to press RETURN for each page use the cat command.
Example: cat /etc/passwd Will display the entire contents of the file /etc/passwd.
cat can also be used to create a file.
Example: cat >newfile Will create a new file or replace the existing file ‘newfile’. After the command, enter the text for each line. To close the file, use control-D.

head

To only display the very beginning of a file, use the command head.
Example: head -5 /etc/passwd Will display the first five lines of the file /etc/passwd.
tail
To only display the very end of a file, use the command tail.
Example: tail -5 /etc/passwd Will display the last five lines of the file /etc/passwd.
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grep – Finding specific content within a file

The grep utility is very useful in finding specific data within a file or group of files. Grep has many options, of which only a few are listed here.

Options What it does
-c Display count of matching lines vs displaying the actual matching text
-v Makes grep work the opposite. Instead of matching, list all lines that don’t match
-i Ignore case, search for both upper and lower case
pattern Text value to use for search
filename What files to search
Examples What it does
grep home /etc/passwd Display all lines containing home in the file /etc/password
grep -v home /etc/passwd Display all lines not containing  home
grep -c home /etc/passwd Display a count of the number of lines that contain home
grep -c -v home /etc/passwd Display a count of the number of lines that don’t contain ‘home’
grep ‘name*’ /etc/sendmail.cf Display all lines where there is a word starting with name, such as name or names
grep ‘domain name’ /etc/sendmail.cf Display all lines containing domain name
grep tcp /etc/rc* Display all lines that contain lower case tcp for files that start with rc in the /etc directory
grep TCP /etc/rc* Display all lines that contain upper case TCP for files that start with rc in the /etc directory
grep -i tcp /etc/rc* Display all lines that contain both upper and lower case tcp for files that start with rc in the /etc directory

Remember that you can use the pipe command to control the output from the above commands to only display the data one page at a time. To any of the above commands, add | less to the end of the command.

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sort – Sorting files

Sometimes it is convenient to use the command sort on an existing file. Here a few useful options for sort.

Options:

  • -r – Sort in reverse order
  • <source filename>
  • -o <destination file>  (If this option is not used, results are displayed on screen.)
Examples What it does
sort /etc/passwd Displays the ‘/etc/passwd’ file in alphabetical order
grep home /etc/passwd | sort Finds lines containing ‘home’ and list results in sorted order
grep home /etc/passwd | sort -r Finds lines containing ‘home’ and lists in reverse order
sort /etc/passwd -o myfile Sorts ‘/etc/passwd’ and puts the results in the file ‘myfile’

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