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LINUX FIELD NOTES

Paths, parents and names with spaces

Name a file from where you are, from the root, and when the name itself contains a space.

Absolute means from the root

A path that starts with / is the same no matter which directory you are in. Your practice home is /home/learner, and the project files live in /home/learner/projects.

cat /home/learner/projects/readme.txt

Relative means from here

A path with no leading / starts at the working directory. .. is the parent. From projects, ../welcome.txt is the welcome file in your home directory.

cat ../welcome.txt

Move up one level

cd .. changes into the parent directory. From projects, that parent is your home directory. cd ~ and cd /home/learner reach the same place by other names.

cd ..

Quote a space

The shell splits arguments on spaces. Quotes keep release notes.txt as one filename. The quotes are not part of the name.

cat "release notes.txt"

Make it stick.

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