UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

hi guys,

isnt cd -
supposed to go back to the previous line??

another question, im looking at this book that has these exercises but let me show u what happens

(swindon)34% cd ~/IN2011
(swindon)35% cd
(swindon)36% pwd
/u3.bath/s19/cv896
(swindon)37% pwd
/u3.bath/s19/cv896
(swindon)38%

after typing cd ~/IN2011 it asked to type cd followed by pwd and something is supposed to change

but i dont get whats happening in the replies

Not that I'm aware of ... by "last line" you mean the last command that was entered? If you mean the previous directory, then it's cd .. The tilde changes to your home directory, so the first command changes to the IN2011 directory inside your home directory.

The cd command by itself switches to your home directory since you're not supplying it with any parameters.

And pwd just displays the current directory you're in, which appears to be /u3.bath/s19/cv896 (your home directory)

What else does your book say? What's supposed to change?

Your best bet is to read the man pages on these commands:

cd [ directory ]

If directory is not specified, the value of shell parameter $HOME is used as the new working directory.

pwd

pwd prints the path name of the working (current) directory. pwd is both an explicit command (invoked as /usr/bin/pwd), as well as a builtin command to each shell (invoked as pwd).

http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/cgi-bin/man-cgi?cd
http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/cgi-bin/man-cgi?pwd

not the previous line but the previous directory.

Code:

[qgatu003]/export/home/mxdooley$pwd
/export/home/mxdooley
[qgatu003]/export/home/mxdooley$cd unix.com/
[qgatu003]/export/home/mxdooley/unix.com$cd -
/export/home/mxdooley
[qgatu003]/export/home/mxdooley$

And the cd - command does not work for csh (noted that your prompt has % instead of $ - assumption you are using csh - it will work in tcsh though)

HI guys, im revising for an exam if anyone is wondering, I typed the following

grep King MagnaCarta.txt
echo grep King MagnaCarta.txt
`echo grep King MagnaCarta.txt`

the first one gets me the sentence in which King is mentioned
second one just prints out grep King MagnaCarta.txt

the third one displays a msg saying
echo grep King MagnaCarta.txt: Command not found

Why does it do that? What do the single quotes change in the code??