Practical UNIX

Chapter 4. Rules for Entering UNIX Commands

Steve “Mor” Moritsugu

Commands, options, arguments and required spaces Getting help from the man pages and permuted index Command not found errors Setting the PATH to your command directories Usage errors The PS2 prompt Handling a hung port Redirecting standard input, output, or error Quoting rules

Tip for Beginners This whole chapter has useful rules and trouble-shooting tips for entering UNIX commands to the shell. Read the rules carefully and skim the troubleshooting errors so that you can recognize problems and look up the correct section in this chapter when you encounter that problem. The quoting rules are difficult and involve concepts and commands from later chapters, so put this section ...