Please familiarize yourself with the following CLI commands. They all work on a Mac and most should work on Windows.
The pwd
command
Displays the current working directory
The ls
command
List all the non-hidden files in the current directory to the console. Hidden files begin with a ".". If you'd like to display all files (hidden and non-hidden) in the current directory, run ls -a
.
The cd
command
Change directory from the current directory to (file path)
Example: cd ~/Downloads
The mkdir
command
Create a subdirectory named (file path) in the current directory
Example: mkdir assignment1
The touch
command
Create a new, empty file.
Example: touch index.html
The open
command
Open a folder or file with a specific application from the CLI. This command isn't necessary to learn but can be helpful. I often find myself wanting to open a specific folder or file (like ~/.bash_profile
) with VS Code from the CLI. I am not certain if this command works on Windows. If anyone is using Windows, please give this a try and let me know. 🙏
Examples:
open -a 'Visual Studio Code' .
(the "." means the current working directory)open -a 'Visual Studio Code' ~/.bash_profile
(This can be very helpful if you need to edit a hidden file and you aren't familiar with a CLI text editor like Vim.)