Linux-Working with files

To find the type of a file

file <file name>

To create a file

cat > filename.txt
      //type the contents and press Ctrl+D to exit

To display the contents of a text file

cat <file name>

To view the contents of a file page by page

more <file name>
    //traversal only in forward direction
less <file name>
    //traversal in both directions

To display first few lines of a file

head <file name>
head -5 <file name>
    //first 5 lines

To display last few lines of a file

tail <file name>
tail -5 <file name>
    //last 5 lines

To display the last few lines of a text file, and then output appended data as the file grows (very useful for following log files!)

tail -f /var/log/messages

To copy a file from one location to another

cp [-r] <source file/directory> <destination>
    eg: cp mp3files.txt /tmp

To move a file to a new location

mv <source> <destination>
    eg: mv mp3files.txt /tmp

To delete a file

rm [-r] <filename/directory name>
    eg: rm /tmp/mp3files.txt
        rm -r /tmp/ (-r means recursive - for directory)