Operation Manual

FunctionShortcut Key
Closes the shell session.
Ctrl + D
Browses in the history of executed commands.
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21.3 Working with Files and
Directories
To address a certain le or directory, you must specify the path leading to that directory
or le. As you may know from MS DOS or Mac OS already, there are two ways to
specify a path:
Absolute Path
Enter the entire path from the root directory to the relevant le or directory.
Relative Path
Enter a path to the relevant le or directory by using the current directory as a
starting point. This implies to give the levels you have to move up or down in the
le system tree to reach the target directory of le, starting from the current direc-
tory.
Paths contain lenames, directories or both, separated by slashes. Absolute paths always
start with a slash. Relative paths do not have a slash at the beginning, but can have one
or two dots.
When entering commands, you can choose either way to specify a path, depending on
your preferences or the amount of typing, both will lead to the same result. To change
directories, use the cd command and specify the path to the directory.
NOTE: Handling Blanks in Filenames or Directory Names
If a lename or the name of a directory contains a space, either escape the
space using a back slash (\) in front of the blank or enclose the lename in
single quotes. Otherwise Bash interprets a lename like My Documents as
the names of two les or directories, My and Documents in this case.
Shell Basics 305