adamm
06-03-2003, 10:08 PM
Have you ever wanted to know what the commands in these directories do:
/bin
/sbin
/usr/bin
There is a command called whatis and xargs, that can be used quite creatively to print out quick definitions of all the command in a directory.
ls | xargs whatis | less
Move to the bin directory of your choice and follow the example below:
root@0[/]# cd /bin
root@0[bin]# ls | xargs whatis | less
afio (1) - manipulate archives and files
arch (1) - print machine architecture
ash (1) - a shell
ash.static: nothing appropriate.
bash (1) - GNU Bourne-Again SHell
bsd-csh (1) - a shell (command interpreter) with C-like syntax
bsh (1) - a shell
cat (1) - concatenate files and print on the standard output
chgrp (1) - change group ownership
etc... etc... etc...
These will print out the whatis for every command in the directory you are in so you can get a quick overview of the commands listed.
Enjoy! :D
/bin
/sbin
/usr/bin
There is a command called whatis and xargs, that can be used quite creatively to print out quick definitions of all the command in a directory.
ls | xargs whatis | less
Move to the bin directory of your choice and follow the example below:
root@0[/]# cd /bin
root@0[bin]# ls | xargs whatis | less
afio (1) - manipulate archives and files
arch (1) - print machine architecture
ash (1) - a shell
ash.static: nothing appropriate.
bash (1) - GNU Bourne-Again SHell
bsd-csh (1) - a shell (command interpreter) with C-like syntax
bsh (1) - a shell
cat (1) - concatenate files and print on the standard output
chgrp (1) - change group ownership
etc... etc... etc...
These will print out the whatis for every command in the directory you are in so you can get a quick overview of the commands listed.
Enjoy! :D