Datasheet

Book VIII
Chapter 1
. . . And UNIX Lurks
Beneath
687
Useful Commands
Once again, deleting files and folders requires that you have permission to
do so. In other words, any time that you manipulate files with the command
line, you’re required to have the proper permission. If your current user
lacks these permissions, using sudo helps. You should also check to make
sure that your target is correctly spelled and that no pesky spaces that
could wreak carnage are lurking in the command.
Opening documents and launching applications
Launching applications and opening documents is child’s play for a UNIX
pro like you. The open command does it all. For example, to bring the Finder
to the foreground without touching the mouse, use
open /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app
To open a document from the command line, follow a similar scheme.
For example, to view an image named myImage.tif that’s stored in your
Documents folder, try this:
open ~/Documents/myImage.tif
Useful Commands
Manipulating files and viewing folder content is fun, but the command line is
capable of so much more! Now I focus your attention on some of the other
useful tasks that you can perform with the command line.
Mac OS X comes stocked with a full set of useful commands. You can dis-
cover many of the commands that are installed by viewing the files in /usr/
bin. Type cd /usr/bin to navigate there. Other locations to peruse include /
bin and /usr/local/bin.
Calendar
One of my favorite command-line functions is the cal command, which dis-
plays a calendar in text form. Simply entering cal at the prompt displays a
calendar for the current month, as shown in Figure 1-4.
Append a number to the cal command to display a 12-month calendar for
that year. The number that follows the cal command is the year for which
you’d like to see a calendar. For example, to view a calendar for 1970, type
cal 1970. The result appears in Figure 1-5.
55_9781118022061-bk08ch01.indd 68755_9781118022061-bk08ch01.indd 687 8/10/11 9:39 AM8/10/11 9:39 AM