Command Line Interface (CLI): Get Started

👀 Overview:

This tutorial will introduce you to how to use CLI to manage files and directories.

We will cover the basic commands for navigating your file system, creating, editing, copying, renaming, moving, and deleting files and directories using the CLI.

🎯 Goals

By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to:

• Understand the importance of using the CLI
• Navigate your file system using the CLI: create, edit, copy, rename, move, and delete files and directories

⚒️ Tutorial: CLI - Get started

1. Show files and directories

Let's start with pwd command. It stands for “print working directory”

# Show the current working directory 
pwd

…and then list the directory contents with ls command.

# List the dir content 
ls

The directory may have some hidden files. They are typically used to store configuration settings, preferences, etc. And hidden files aren’t intended to be directly accessed or modified by the user on a regular basis.

With the command ls -a, you can list all files in a directory, including hidden files.

# Show all files including ‘hidden’ (whose names begin with a dot ‘.’) 
ls -a 

To list files in the long format, use the ls command with the -l argument. This command's output will include information about permissions, ownership, file size, date and time of last modification, and the file or directory name.

# List files in the long format
ls -l 

To combine options, use -la.

# Combine options: list all files in the long format 
ls -la 

To get help on ls command, let's use the command man ls. Same works for other CLI commands.

If you need any clarification on the functionalities and options available for the ls command, use the command man ls. It stands for manual page. Same works for other CLI commands.

To come back to the CLI, press the q button on the keyboard.

# Show the command `Help`  (quit with `q` key)
man ls

2. Create directories and files

To make a new directory in the current working directory, you should use the mkdir command followed by the directory name. For example, let’s create demo-cli directory.

# Make a new `demo-cli` directory 
mkdir demo-cli

Once the directory is created, you can move into it using the cd command. It stands for “change directory”

# Move into the `demo-cli` dir
cd demo-cli

Sometimes you might need to create a new empty file. Let’s create a file named file.txt in the current directory with touch file.txt command.

# Create a new empty file in the working directory 
touch file.txt

3. Edit files with the vi / vim editor

Note

For this learning part, you need to use a text editor. You can use Vi or Vim text editors, which are built-in CLI.

Also, you may use another default editor on your system (like nano). In this case, skip this section.

Create a file

# Open a file for editing with `vi` 
vi file.txt

# Open a file for editing with `vim` 
vim file.txt

To edit a file in vi /vim editor:

• Press i to switch to insert mode and add the text: This is the first line

In case you want to close the file without saving it:

• Press Esc button
• Type a string :q (stands for ‘quit’) and press Enter, you will get an expected error: E37: No write since last change (add ! to override)
• Add ! mark, type a string :q! and press Enter, to close the file without saving changes

If you want to save changes made in vi / vim editor:

• Open the file with vi file.txt again and add the text: This is the first line
• Press Esc button
• Type a string :wq
• Press Enter

Finally, to show the content of a file in CLI use the cat command with the file name, such as file.txt. This command stands for "concatenate." It means that cat command can read and display the contents of one or multiple files to the terminal.

# Show the content of the file in CLI
cat file.txt

4. Copy, move, and delete files

These code lines demonstrate how to copy, move, and delete files and directories using the command-line interface. Here are the steps:

1. Navigate to the demo-cli directory using cd demo-cli.

# Navigate to the `demo-cli` dir
cd demo-cli

2. Create a copy of the file.txt using cp file.txt file2.txt.

# Create a copy of the `file.txt` 
cp file.txt file2.txt

3. Move the copy to the parent directory (use ..) with mv file2.txt ..

# Move the copy to the parent directory (us `..`)
mv file2.txt ..

4. Navigate to the parent directory with cd .. command.

# Navigate to the parent dir
cd .. 

5. Remove file2.txt using the command rm and the file’s name such as file2.txt

# Remove `file2.txt` 
rm file2.txt

6. Remove the demo-cli directory and all its contents using rm -rf demo-cli.

# Remove `demo-cli` dir
rm -rf demo-cli

5. Сheat sheet with commands

CLI commands

Command	Action
mkdir	Creates a new folder
rm	Removes a file or directory
cd	Changes to another location in your filesystem
ls	Lists the files in the current directory
pwd	Prints working directory
cat	Prints in the current screen the content of a file
mv	Moves or rename files

Vi/Vim editor commands

Command	Action
:i	Press i to switch to insert mode
:w	After making changes to a file, press [Esc] to shift to the command mode and press :w and hit [Enter] to save a file.
:q	To exit Vi/Vim, use the :q command and hit [Enter]
:wq / :x	To save a file and exit Vi/Vim simultaneously, use the :wq command and hit [Enter] or :x command
:q!	To force this action, use ESC and :q!

🏁 Conclusion

Congratulations on completing this tutorial! 🥳  By now, you should have a solid understanding of the importance of using the CLI in machine learning development and should be able to navigate your file system using CLI commands. You have also learned how to create, edit, and delete files and directories using the CLI.

Keep practicing and honing your skills with the CLI, and don't hesitate to explore new commands and techniques. With time and practice, you will become a CLI expert! 🙌🏻

🎓 Additional Resources

• Machine Learning REPA Library
• Unix Tutorial for Beginners
• Learn Enough Command Line to Be Dangerous
• Introduction to the Unix Shell

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