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Terminal commands 411.

Anyone knows where I can get info on Terminal commands? Is there a book or list of them?

A1181, Mac OS X (10.5.2), Black MacBook

Posted on Jul 19, 2008 12:26 PM

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Posted on Jul 19, 2008 4:37 PM

Start with the list of currently installed commands: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/index.html#// apple_ref/doc/framework/manpages

Additionally, check out the Unix forum under OS X Technologies and any O'Reilly book on Unix or the bash shell.
4 replies

Jul 19, 2008 9:44 PM in response to Mc Apple

FYI you can get this same info in the terminal itself. For a list of all commands starting with the same character (or set of characters), at the terminal prompt type the first character(s) and then press tab twice. The shell will try to complete the command on the first tab from all those available, and then list the remaining ones on the second tab. From there you can see the list of commands, and then use the built in "man pages" to look up a specific command.

For instance, if I'm looking for a command "ipconfig", I can type in "i <tab> <tab>" and get a list of all the commands that start with the letter "i". ipconfig is one of those commands, and is listed in the results. I can also narrow down the output list by furthering the initial command to "ip <tab> <tab>", which will give me all available commands that begin with "ip".

From there I can see the "ipconfig" command, and know it's available to me (many commands on some UNIX/Linux distributions are not included in others -- OS X included). From there I can run "man ipconfig" to print out the manual page (man page -- those listed on the site baltwo linked to) and look up the command information.

This puts reference information right at your fingertips, instead of having to open your browser and look up the command there. Additionally, if you are ever in a situation where you do not have a GUI and are only dealing with the command line (such as single-user mode) then knowing how to access a command's man pages in the terminal can be very useful.

Terminal commands 411.

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