A solid terminal and git cheatsheet

Table of Contents

• Terminal
  • alias
  • ls
  • cd
  • pwd
  • which
  • mkdir
  • touch
  • rm
  • Sourcing changes to rc files
• Git

Terminal

alias

Alias one thing to another thing.

sh
> alias hello="echo hello"
> hello
hello

If you save this line in your .zshrc or .bashrc file, hello will be available in all new terminal sessions. To make it available in your current session too, see Sourcing changes to rc files

ls

List the files in the current directory.

You can install exa for a modern replacement:

sh
brew install exa

I alias ls to exa so that I always use exa. You can do the same by adding the following to your .bashrc or .zshrc file:

sh
alias ls=exa

You'll also need to source the changes to the file if you want the alias to work in your current terminal.

cd

change directory. Changes your directory to a different one.

sh
~
> cd code
~/code
>

If you type part of a file or directory name and press tab, you'll trigger autocomplete which will attempt to find to expand your current input to the first matched filename.

sh
> ls
a_file b_file
> ls a<tab>
# hitting tab there replaces the input line with:
> ls a_file

If you use zsh, you can use tab to complete nested partial matches:

sh
> ls -T
.
└── site
   └── src
      └── pages
         ├── api
         │  └── hello.ts
         └── index.tsx
> ls s/s/p/a/h[tab]
# hitting tab there replaces the input line with:
> ls site/src/pages/api/hello.ts

pwd

present working directory aka "where am I?". Shows your current location in the file system.

sh
~
> pwd
/Users/with-heart

which

Shows you what/where the target command is.

sh
> which ls
ls: aliased to exa
> which exa
/opt/homebrew/bin/exa

mkdir

Creates a directory in the current directory.

sh
> mkdir new-directory

Kind of sucks by default because it can't create nested directories:

sh
> mkdir some/nested/directory
mkdir: some/nested: No such file or directory

However it has this nice little flag -p that makes it handle nested directories. I think that should be the default option, so I made it that way on my local system:

sh
> alias mkdir="mkdir -p"
> mkdir some/nested/directory

touch

Create an empty file.

sh
> touch some_file

rm

Remove the target file/directory.

zsh
# files:
> rm some_file
# directories:
# we need `-r` flag (recursive) for directories + `-f` flag (force) to delete
# all files/directories under the target without asking for confirmation
> rm -rf some_directory

Sourcing changes to rc files

If you've modified your .zshrc/.bashrc file and want to see changes in the current terminal: source .zshrc or source .bashrc.

Git

I'll write this at some point. Encourage me to write it on Twitter!