Lesson 11-Locating, Printing, and Archiving User Files

Overview

Creating a long file.

Splitting long files.

Locating files with find.

Printing a file.

Archiving files.

Creating a Long File

The “ls –R ~” command is used to list all the files contained

in the user’s home directory.

The “cut –c range of characters ~/file name” command is

used to read a particular number of characters from each

line in a file.

The “cat –n file name” command is used to add numbers to

the left of all lines in a copy of the file.

Splitting Long Files

The “split” utility is used to read a long file and break up

the contents into a series of small files of specified size.

Each small file has an extension starting with “aa” and

going through the alphabet as far as needed to hold a copy

of the whole file.

Splitting Long Files

Splitting Long Files into Pieces

Splitting Long Files

Reassembling the files:

The “cat filename*” command is used to read all the small files

and output data that matches the original long file.

The last part of the file names, such as “aa”, “ab”, etc., is in

ASCII order.

The ASCII order is used by the shell for the filenames when it

replaces the * in the command line.

Locating File with Find

The “find” utility is used to locate a particular file in several

directories.

The find utility displays the output and any error message

that is appropriate.

The pathnames of files and information about directories

that cannot be examined because of their assigned

permissions are also displayed by the find utility.

Locating File with Find

The command to be given is “find ~ -name filename –

print”.

The “~” specifies the target starting point directory.

The “–print” specifies that the full pathname of each

occurrence of the file(s) matching the selection criterion

should be output to the screen.

Locating File with Find

Locating files by owner.

Locating and acting on files by owner.

Locating additional options.

Acting on all files in a directory tree.

Locating Files by Owner

The “ls –ld /directory name/$USER” command is used to

determine if the user has a directory with the same name

as the login name in a particular directory.

The “find” utility can also be used to identify files owned by

a particular user.

The output of the find utility can be redirected to a file or a

printer.

Locating Files by Owner

Command Line Interpretation find Utility

Locating and Acting on Files by Owner

The find utility can also be used to remove located files,

change file permissions, or employ any shell file-

manipulation command.

The “-exec” option is used with the utility to execute any

command utilizing the file names that are selected.

Locating and Acting on Files by Owner

Using the find Utility to Locate Files by Owner

Locating Additional Options

Additional Options

Acting on all Files in a Directory Tree

The find utility can be used as an agent to go through the

directory tree recursively and execute another utility on all

files.

The utility shows a user to search through the specified

directory trees, based on a variety of criteria, and perform

actions on the located files.

Printing a File

Printing the output of a pipeline.

Printing multiple copies.

Adding a title line to the banner page.

Checking the status of print jobs.

Canceling a print request.

Printing the Output of a Pipeline

A pipe can be used to connect the output of a utility as an

input to the print utility.

The “col –bx” and the “colcrt” utilities are used to remove

control characters that are of value to the terminal.

Printing Multiple Copies

Any of the following commands can be used to print

multiple copies of a file:

lp –n (number of copies to be printed in numeric value) file

name.

lpr -# (number of copies to be printed in numeric value) file

name.

Adding a Title Line to the Banner Page

A banner page, also called the burst page, contains

information about the printer and the user issuing the print

request.

The “lp –t‘numbers file’ file name” or the “lpr –Pprinter –

J’numbers file’ file name” command can be used to add a

title and print the file.

Adding a Title Line to the Banner Page

The “lp –dprinter –ttitle filename” or the “lpr –Pprinter –

J’title’ filename” are the two formats of the print

commands.

Checking the Status of Print Jobs

All print requests are administered by a spooler.

A spooler is a program that receives print requests from

multiple users and sends jobs one at a time to the printer.

The spooler makes it possible for the system to process

simultaneous print job requests for several users.

The “lpstat” or the “lpq –Pprinter username” command can

be use to examine the queue.

Canceling a Print Request

The “cancel” or the “lprm” command can be used to

remove jobs from the queue.

On a Linux system, all printing jobs owned by the user are

removed from the queue.

On a UNIX system, the “–u” option is used to indicate jobs

owned by the user.

Archiving Files

Archiving files on floppy disks.

Creating archives with tar.

Archiving Files on Floppy Disks

Copying a file to and from a floppy:

Mtools is a set of programs that facilitate the copying of files to a

floppy drive without going through the process of mounting the

drive.

The “mcopy” command is used to copy a file to and from a floppy.

The command requires two arguments the file name from the

current directory, and a:, which is an agreed name for the floppy.

Archiving Files on Floppy Disks

Copying a file to and from a floppy (continued):

Multiple files can be copied by using the * sign in place of a

particular filename.

Attributes such as permissions are not included in the copy.

When a file is copied from a floppy, the permissions for the

newly copied file may not match its original permissions.

When the mcopy command creates a new file on the system,

the default permissions for the new file are applied.

Archiving Files on Floppy Disks

Removing files and directories from a floppy:

The “mdel” command is used to delete files.

The mdel command requires an argument, the name of the

file(s) to be deleted.

The “mdeltree” command is used to delete directories.

This command requires one argument, the name of the

directory to be deleted.

Archiving Files on Floppy Disks

Formatting a floppy disk:

The “mformat” command is used to format a floppy.

The floppy is formatted in the DOS format.

Creating Archives with tar

The “tar” (tape archiving) utility is used extensively for

making archive files on most systems.

The utility can be used to create a single file, called archive,

which contains the files in a directory tree and all

information about each file.

Creating Archives with tar

The command used to create a tar archive is “tar –cvf

filename.tar”.

The command instructs tar to create an archive in verbose

mode and use a file to hold the archive.

The dot (.) is the source directory, from which all files are

archived.

The “tar –tf filename” can be used to list the contents of the tar

archive.

Creating Archives with tar

Extracting files from an archive:

The extension “.tar” is called a “tarball”.

A tarball can be moved, mailed, or placed on portable media.

The “tar –xvf filename.tar” is used to extract the directory tree

from the archive.

The command provides instructions to extract the structure

from the archive in verbose mode, from a file.

Summary

The split utility is used to break the contents of a long file

into a series of small files.

The lp and the lpr utilities manage files directed to the

printer.

The find utility searches through a directory tree for files

based on specific criteria, and then takes action on each

identified file.

Summary

The mtools utility facilitates the copying of files to and from

a floppy drive using a DOS-formatted floppy.

The tar utility is used to make an archive of a directory tree

or a file.

The archive can be stored on permanent media, sent to a

remote machine, or just used to move a structure from one

location in a system to another.