Filesystem Navigation Commands in Unix

Navigating your Unix filesystem is one of the basic skills. The following commands will help you with all your navigation needs.

Essential navigation commands in Unix

• pwd – confirm the current directory you're in
• ls – list files and directories
• cd – change directory

Additional commands

While not helping in your navigation, these commands will definitely help you learn more about where and what you're looking at in your filesystem tree:

• file – confirm the type of a file
• find – find files and directories
• locate – quickly find files and directories using locatedb database
• dirname – extract the directory name from a full path to a file
• basename – strip directory and suffix from a full path to a file

See Also

• Basic Unix Commands