The standard for most processes initiated by LINUX commands is write to the standard output (that
is, they write to the terminal screen), and take their input from the standard
input (that is, they read it from the keyboard).
There is also a third output channel, called the standard
error, where processes write their error messages, by default, to the terminal
screen.
We have already seen one use of the cat command to write the contents of a file to the screen.
Now type cat without specifing a file to read
% cat
Then type a few words on the keyboard and press the [Return]
key.
Finally hold the [Ctrl]
key down and press [d]
(written
as ^D for short) to end the input.
What has happened?
If you run the cat command without specifing a file to read, it reads the standard input (the keyboard), and on receiving the 'end of file' (^D), copies it to the standard output (the screen).
In UNIX, we can redirect both the input and the output of commands.
windows In Windows the 'End of File' is [Ctrl+Z]
.
EOF End of file is Often Written as EOF
As everything in LINUX is a file we can redirect to a socket(internet), printer, alternative screen, etc!
We use the > symbol to redirect the output of a command. For example, to create a file called list1 containing a list of fruit, type
% cat > list1
Then type in the names of some fruit. Press [Return]
after each
one.
pear
banana
apple
^D (Control D to stop)
What happens is the cat command reads the standard input (the keyboard) and the > redirects the output, which normally goes to the screen, into a file called list1
To read the contents of the file, type
% cat list1
Using the above method, create another file called list2 containing the following fruit: orange, plum, mango, grapefruit. Read the contents of list2
The form >> appends standard output to a file. So to add more items to the file list1, type
% cat >> list1
Then type in the names of more fruit
peach
grape
orange
^D (Control D to stop)
To read the contents of the file, type
% cat list1
You should now have two files. One contains six fruit, the other contains four fruit. We will now use the cat command to join (concatenate) list1 and list2 into a new file called biglist. Type
% cat list1 list2 > biglist
What this is doing is reading the contents of list1 and list2 in turn, then outputing the text to the file biglist
To read the contents of the new file, type
% cat biglist
We use the < symbol to redirect the input of a command.
The command sort alphabetically or numerically sorts a list. Type
% sort
Then type in the names of some vegetables. Press [Return]
after
each one.
carrot
beetroot
artichoke
^D (control d to stop)
The output will be
artichoke
beetroot
carrot
Using < you can redirect the input to come from a file rather than the keyboard. For example, to sort the list of fruit, type
% sort < biglist
and the sorted list will be output to the screen.
To output the sorted list to a file, type,
% sort < biglist > slist
Use cat to read the contents of the file slist
We use the 2> symbols to redirect the errors of a command. We can also use
the symbols 2>> to redirect the output by appending the output to th eend of a file.
For example, the ls
command will report an error if the file to be
listed is not found or for instance if the command does not have the permission to list the file.
Type
% ls xxx > lsErrors
% ls /root >> lsErrors
What happens is the ls command can't find the file xxx and reports and error which is redirected to the file lsErrors. The /root directory is usually a protected directory which a regular user does not have permission to list, hence this command will also report an error which is redirected to the lsErrors file
To read the contents of the file, type
% cat lsErrors
The output will be
ls: cannot access xxx: No such file or directory
ls: cannot open directory /root: Permission denied
To see who is on the system with you, type
% who
One method to get a sorted list of names is to type,
% who > names.txt
% sort < names.txt
This is a bit slow and you have to remember to remove the temporary file called names when you have finished. What you really want to do is connect the output of the who command directly to the input of the sort command. This is exactly what pipes do. The symbol for a pipe is the vertical bar |
For example, typing
% who | sort
will give the same result as above, but quicker and cleaner.
To find out how many users are logged on, type
% who | wc -l
Efficiency In the who followed by sort example the commands are executed sequentially. A pipe however executes the commands concurrently. This can improve efficiency.
To download a news feed as a single file, type
% curl http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world/rss.xml
To discover if Portugal is mentioned in the news we can use the grep command
% curl http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world/rss.xml > tmp
% grep Portugal < tmp ; rm tmp
This can be very slow as we have to wait for the entre file to download before searching for Portugal. What you really want to do is connect the output of the curl command directly to the input of the grep command and have both commands operating concurrently so that as soon as reference to Portugal has been downloaded it wll reported by grep on the screen.
Pipes do this so we can simply do
% curl http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world/rss.xml | grep Portugal
which will give the same result as above, but quicker and cleaner.
a2ps -Phockney textfile is the command to print a postscript file to the printer hockney.
Using pipes, print all lines of list1 and list2 containing the letter 'p', sort the result, and print to the printer hockney.
command < file |
redirect standard input from a file |
command > file |
redirect standard output to a file |
command >> file |
append standard output to a file |
command 2> file |
redirect standard error to a file |
command1 | command2 |
pipe the output of command1 to the input of command2 |
cat file1 file2 > file0 |
concatenate file1 and file2 to file0 |
sort |
sort data |
who |
list users currently logged in |
curl |
download a url |
grep |
select lines based on some pattern |
a2ps -Pprinter textfile |
print text file to named printer |
lpr -Pprinter psfile |
print postscript file to named printer |