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GNU Coreutils🔗

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Master file/text manipulation and system basics.

Installation🔗

Preinstalled on most Linux systems. Verify/update:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install coreutils

Essential Commands🔗

Category Command Description
File Ops cp -a archive-preserving copy
mv -i interactive rename (prompt)
rm -I Safe bulk delete (1 prompt)
Text grep -C 3 'text' show 3 lines around match
sed -i 's/old/new/g' file in-place replace
awk '{print $1}' print first column
System df -h Human-readable disk space
du -sh * directory sizes summary
Search find . -mtime -7 files modified in last 7 days
locate -i pattern case-insensitive file search

Advanced Usage🔗

  • Bulk rename with xargs and sed:
ls *.txt | xargs -I {} sh -c 'mv {} $(echo {} | sed "s/.txt/.md/")'
  • parallel processing with parallel
find . -name "*.log" | parallel -j 4 gzip
  • Compare Directories
diff -qr dir1/ dir2/

Configuration🔗

Customize ls color ~/.bashrc

export LS_COLORS="di=1;36:ln=35:*.zip=32"
alias ls="ls --color=auto"

Safe defaults ~/.bash_aliases

alias cp="cp -i --preserve=all"  
alias rm="rm -I"

Pro Tips🔗

  • Dry Run for destructive operations
rm -Iv *  # Interactive verbose
cp -anv src/ dest/  # No-clobber dry-run
  • Timing command Executions
time grep -r "pattern" /large_dir
  • Split large files
split -b 100M bigfile.zip "bigfile_part_"

Troubleshooting🔗

Issues Solution
"Permission denied" Use sudo or chmod/chown
"Argument list too long" Use xargs: find ... | xargs rm
Special chars in filenames Use quotes or escape: rm 'file$name.txt'

See also🔗