Managing Files

Command	Action
ls	List the contents of a directory
file	Determine the file type
less	Navigate the contents of a file
cat	View the contents of a file
ln -s	Make symbolic links

File Types

A file can contain any type of data. For example, it could be plain text, a picture, a video or many more. The file command tries to guess what type of data is in the file. It’s not perfect because it’s not always possible to tell (e.g. when a file called picture.jpg is empty). Plain text files can be viewed on the command line with cat and less.

Symbolic Links

Symbolic links are references to files. A link makes it appear that the same file is in two places, but the link doesn’t use up any extra space. They’re an important way to do things like mark your favorite poem without making a copy. It’s possible to make hard links too, but don’t do that.