Lesson9.Text and File Utilities

Lesson 9. Text and File Utilities

In this lesson we will learn about additional file editing and management utilities that can make your life easier in Unix.

In this section, we will wrap up file system management and editing. We have already covered the fundamentals of file creation and management; now we will look at some rare but helpful shell prompt commands that can really help you get some work done.

For example, when you create a book, there are many things that go into it. There is the typing, editing, and the file management and manipulation. For instance, to hand in a chapter that resembles a 10-minute lesson, the word count has to be set so that the reader can get through 8 to 10 pages of text in about 10 to 15 minutes. In a text file or word document, you will need to know the word count. Some of you may be familiar with how to go about getting your favorite word processing program to display this information.

In Unix, you can perform a word count with the wc command. In this chapter we will cover the wc command as well as other file management utilities to help you work efficiently in your Unix environment.

It's important to continue to move through each lesson in sequence as if you are a new learner, because you will see that certain commands can do different functions. For example, you may use a tool like grep in one lesson in a particular way, and then use it in a completely different way in a later lesson.

Using the information learned in this chapter in conjunction with other commands can be very powerful, just like Unix itself. If you take up shell scripting because of what you learned in Lesson 14, "Shell Scripting Fundamentals," you will learn to love any tool or utility that can help you automate a job or function and make your life easier. Let's look at the wc command first.