Shell Programming and Scripting

HI,

This is my home directory /home/xeccc5z under that I have so my directores and one among is server

under the directory server again i have three files named linux,windows,aix

am trying to execute the following command which should go into server directory and display the files inside that directory

Code:

cd /home/xeccc5z/server|ls

but for the above command rather displaying linux,windows,aix its displaying all the directories under /home/xeccc5z/

can some one suggest me please

Perhaps

Code:

cd /home/xeccc5z/server && ls

or

Code:

ls /home/xeccc5z/server

can you tell why the PIPE "|" is not working

A pipe ties the stdout of a program to the stdin of another.
cd does not stdout and ls does not read its arguments from stdin, but from the command line arguments.

Hello xeccc5z,

In general, when you start a process it has its own "environment" including all environment variables and current working directory. Any changes that process makes are limited to that process and its children. Imagine the chaos that could ensue if processes could affect their siblings, or even worse, their parents. When you have pipeline you have a parent, the shell in which you specified a pipeline and a number of children all "piped" together, each child is has an independent environment.

Code:

  
(cd /etc && ( ls | grep x))

Here the whole thing is in () so that it runs in a child process, and hence the cd does not affect the current shell, but does affect the pipeline which is running in a (grand-)child process. Also that's not what pipes are for. They're for directing input/output, not controlling the state of the shell. If you want the behavior you're describing, use a subshell:

Code:

( cd /etc; ls )

You could go through following URL to understand about PIPES more.
The Unix Command Line: Pipes and Redirects

Thanks,
R. Singh