...
Now that we know how to move about our file system, it's time to start interacting with some of our files! For this portion, we'll start in our c2s2 folder directory from before, and assume that we have another empty folder directory named test inside of the c2s2 folder directory:
...
- Make another copy of
bar.txt named bar2.txt - Copy Move a file from within
test up to the parent folderdirectory, c2s2 - Move Copy the
test folder directory to have your NetID folder directory as its parent, and rename it test_renamed
| Info |
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If you are given a choice between copying a folder directory (using cp) and moving it (using mv), the latter will always be faster. cp has to move all the contents, but when using mv, the operating system simply has to move around the pointer to the folder directory in the folder directory hierarchy, and doesn't have to move all of the data individually (if you're curious about what a pointer is, check out the C/C++ Training!) |
...
To remove a file, we will use the rm command. Unless you happen to be a forensic computer scientist
, there is no way to get
these files
deleted by rm back
, so use the command sparingly and only when you're confident!...
Like cp, if we want to delete an entire directory, we must use the r flag:
| Info |
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Using rm (carefully), clean up all the files and directories created by the tutorial inside c2s2 so far, as well as copy of the test directory that you moved under your NetID directory previously |
Addendum: Downloading Files from the Web
| Footnote |
|---|
Strictly speaking, what rm does under the hood is eliminates the pointer to the files from the directory structure (basically, lose the reference our operating system has to its contents) and frees up the memory for the operating system to store other content there. If you were able to externally access the hard drive before the operating system re-wrote that location (hint: turn off the machine immediately, hopefully before the operating system uses that memory), and discern the location in memory where the content was previously stored, one could theoretically get the contents back. There are specialists who have the tools to do this, but for 99.9% of users, it is impossible. If you're curious, to really get rid of data, you can use the shred command to overwrite the memory such that it can't be recovered even by experts - such an operation may be useful if you're disposing of sensitive data. |
