Summary

We have introduced a lot of material in this first chapter, which is probably quite novel to anyone approaching the command line for the first time. Even in this brief exploration, we can start to see how seemingly complicated filesystem tasks can be completed with minimal effort.

In the coming chapter, we will add to our toolbox of useful shell programs that process text data. In later chapters, we will learn about the mechanisms to tie these commands together, such as piping and redirection, to perform complex data-processing tasks. We will also learn about regular expressions and shell expansion constructs that let us manipulate textual data in powerful ways.