Viewing Files

VIEWING THE CONTENTS OF FILES

cat Command

One of the most simple and frequently used commands in Linux is cat.

The cat command allows you to create single or multiple files, view the contents of files, concatenate the contents from multiple files, and redirect contents of the file to a terminal or files.

Create a new file

Steps:

• cat > filename
• Add content
• Press ctrl + d to return to command prompt.

View the contents of the file

cat filename

Display the contents of multiple files

cat file1 file2 file3

You can also combine n files into one file : cat file1 file2 > newfilename

---

less Command

Some files are very long and can take up more room to display than that provided by the terminal. The cat command does not display the contents of a file as pages. The less command displays one page of a file at a time and lets you scroll at your leisure.

The less command allows you to page forward and backward through files that are longer than can fit on one terminal window. Use the UpArrow key and the DownArrow key to scroll up and down. Press q to exit the command.

---

head & tail Commands

Another case might be wanting to view the first n lines of a file or the last n lines. Here, you can use head & tail commands to get your job done.

The head and tail commands display the beginning and end of a file, respectively. By default these commands display 10 lines of the file, but they both have a -n option that allows a different number of lines to be specified. The file to display is passed as an argument to these commands.

You can also use tail -2 instead of tail -n 2

---

file Command

Linux does not require file name extensions to classify files by type. The Linux file command helps determine the type of file and its data by scanning the beginning of a file's contents and displays what type it is.

---