Note: all of Unix is case-sensitive! If you type LS
or Ls, Unix will not understand that you wanted ls
(it will reply not found). In general, commands are lowercase,
environment variables are UPPERCASE, and filenames are mIxEdCaSe.
Filenames can contain lots of special characters (including several dots), be
very long (but you'll have to type the names, so don't make them too long),
and have to be typed exactly. Fortunately, you can often use wildcards
to abbreviate them.
For a more complete list of commands than the few examples provided here below, see the seminar handout, which is also available in PDF format for easy printing. Here I have tried to provide a few commands that didn't quite fit into the handout, or where comments seemed appropriate.
| CMS-command | what it does | Unix-command | comments on Unix-procedure |
|---|---|---|---|
| filelist | display files in current directory to execute commands on them | pilot | no prefix area, just launches programs |
| vmarchive | archive files on tape | n.a. | use gzip to compress file, ftp it to your PC/Mac, and run ADSM tape archiver (on campus network) |
| tell | send interactive messages | talk, ytalk | much better than tell, more like xyzzy |
| xedit | edit text files | x, the | no need for F10 to scroll sideways |
| sendfile | send a file to another user | pine | use the "attach file" command, browse for the file |
| print (dest | print to a specified printer | lpr -P | followed by printer-name, then file-name |
| cp disc | disconnect, leave processes running | nohup command | leaves process running without you until it finishes or you kill it (check it with ps) |
| batch | run a command in the background | command & | Type fg to get the last background process back to the foreground. If you want another one, use ps to find its pid, use fg pid. |
| tell mailer forward ... | set mail-forwarding address | .forward | create this file, containing one address per line that will each receive your mail |
| graderun | obtain class rosters | --- | using a webbrowser, go to https://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap-auth/bin/webpbro/acccrost.cgi |
When you want to do something to multiple files, or to one with a long and
complicated name, you can use a few special characters to save typing. Example:
rm longfilename1 longfilename2 could have been abbreviated e.g.
as rm longf* as long as you have no other files fitting that pattern
that you want to keep. The star * stands for "any number
of characters, including none". Another such wildcard is the
question mark, ?, which indicates "any single character".
