Commands list?

[Morpheus]

How do i get a list of commands to do in my terminal.
because i know typing "man commmand" whatever the command was in this case i used the command sudo it told me what it did ....is there anyway to get a list off all these commands and what they do?

[fireproof]

I realize there is always another way to do things in this new UN*X world, so here's my suggestion:

• open a terminal
• type

  cd /usr/bin

  -return-
• read the man page for each item.

[griffman]

The best way is to get a UNIX book; the man pages can very from great to really bad.

You can also see all the commands within any given character of the alphabet by typing "a[tab]" or "b[tab]"; replace [tab] with an actual pressing of the tab key, of course :-).

-rob.

[greggo]

To get a quick list of all commands...

Control X Control D

[mervTormel]

there are several commands to help you discover and investigate commands. but
first, the 'full complement of commands'...

in a bash shell, hitting tab on a blank command line offers:

$ [tab]
Display all nnnn possibilities? (y or n)

!        emacs-20.7   mount_nfs      sum
./       emacsclient  mount_smbfs    sundocs
../      enable       mount_synthfs  sunsolve
...

in tcsh, keying "control-x then tab or control-d" results in the same thing without
the question, here anyway.

what is happening here is the shell is traversing your $PATH variable dir entries
and spitting out any file entries in those dirs that are executable.

it's not a very good way to find commands; it's full of commands you don't want
to see. well, many times, anyhow.

i suggest you explore the commands apropos and whatis...

% whatis apropos whatis
apropos(1)   - locate commands by keyword lookup
whatis(1)    - describe what a command is

% apropos copy
cp(1)    - copy files and directories
cpio(1)      - copy files to and from archives
dd(1)    - convert and copy a file
...
# a lot of, perhaps, unwanted entries here from 
# man libraries and programming pages

% apropos copy | grep file    # more reasonable filtration
cp(1)    - copy files and directories
cpio(1)      - copy files to and from archives
dd(1)    - convert and copy a file
install(1)   - copy files and set attributes

% apropos copy | egrep "\([1,8]\)"  # just general (1) and admin (8) commands
cp(1)    - copy files and directories
cpio(1)      - copy files to and from archives
dd(1)    - convert and copy a file
install(1)   - copy files and set attributes
...
dbsym(8)     - copy kernel symbol table into db_symtab space
dd(1)    - convert and copy a file
ditto(8)     - copy source directories to destination directory

a little background: these commands are driven off the whatis database. the
whatis database is built (by /etc/weekly) on entries in the man page directories.
[ note that some commands don't have man pages ]

e.g.,

% egrep ^ls /usr/share/man/whatis.db
ls(1)    - list directory contents
lsbom(8)     - interprets the contents of binary bom (bom(5)) files
lsearch(3), lfind(3) - linear searching routines
lseek(2)     - reposition read/write file offset
lsof(8)      - list open files

above, we've grep'd a whatis.db for entries starting with 'ls' to show what the db
contains.

so, apropos looks up keywords in the whatis database entries; if you apropos 'list'
you'll get a lot of chaff, so use some grep tricks to filter it down some...

% apropos list | grep dir
dir(1)       - list directory contents
ls(1)    - list directory contents
tree(1)      - list contents of directories in a tree-like format
vdir(1)      - list directory contents
ls(1)    - list directory contents
XFontsOfFontSet(3), XBaseFontNameListOfFontSet(3),...

hope that helps you get a 'grep' on apropos and whatis.

[Morpheus]

thanks ....thanks a lot you guys

This helped me some.
A little confusing but ill have to read closer...
I think im going to get a UNIX book..
I cant wait to learn more....
UNIX Book = My 2nd Bible

[Morpheus]

Quote: Originally posted by griffman The best way is to get a UNIX book; the man pages can very from great to really bad. You can also see all the commands within any given character of the alphabet by typing "a[tab]" or "b[tab]"; replace [tab] with an actual pressing of the tab key, of course :-). -rob.

I like the A [tab] thing

[Morpheus]

One more small question...

If i get a UNIX book do i need some priar knowledge to UNIX? Or will the book most likely help me to get knowledge. I mean....you think i should get UNIX or OSX book?

[mervTormel]

Quote: Originally posted by Morpheus If i get a UNIX book do i need some priar knowledge to UNIX? Or will the book most likely help me to get knowledge. I mean....you think i should get UNIX or OSX book?

depends entirely on the book. some require prior knowldege and do no hand-holding. also, it depends on what you want to explore as they all have their inclinations.

perhaps go to a bookstore and peruse the OSX books for a start, then decide where to focus.

beware: there are a lot of bad books to burn you, so do your homework.