Date: 2007dec20
Subject: Two letter Linux/Unix Commands
One day I wondered... what are all the Linux/Unix two letter commands.
Of course we use vi, rm, mv and ls daily but what are the others.
Surely they must be important if their names are so short.
So I did:
ls /bin/?? /usr/bin/??
And looked them all up.
From /bin we get:
cp - copy files and directories
dd - convert and copy a file
df - report file system disk space usage
ex - start vim in ex mode
ln - make links between files
ls - list directory contents
mv - move (rename) files
ps - report a snapshot of the current processes.
rm - remove files or directories
sh - Bourne shell (linked to Bash for me)
su - run a shell with substitute user and group IDs
vi - I made this a link to vim
From /usr/bin we get:
ab - Apache HTTP server benchmarking tool
ar - create, modify, and extract from archives
as - the portable GNU assembler.
cc - link to gcc on my box
du - estimate file space usage
ex - start vim in ex mode
gs - Ghostscript (PostScript and PDF language interpreter and pre- viewer)
id - print user identity
ld - The GNU linker
lp - print files
m4 - macro processor
nl - number lines of files
nm - list symbols from object files
od - dump files in octal and other formats
pr - convert text files for printing
rb - receive with Ymodem
rx - receive with XModem
rz - receive with ZModem
sb - send with YModem
sg - execute command as different group ID
sm - Jabber IM session manager
sx - send with XModem
sz - send with ZModem
tr - translate or delete characters
ul - do underlining
wc - print newline, word, and byte counts for each file
So now you know.
sg was a cool discovery for me.
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