Rails Girls London lightning talk - The command line is your friend

Rails Girls London - 19th-20th April 2013

Commandline basics

Basic filestystem structure

.
|____home
| |____despo
| | |____documents
| | |____pictures

root path, / in unix systems, C:\ in windows

home path: is similar to C:\Users on Windows

|____home

Create a directory `mkdir`

mkdir home

List the contents of a directory `ls`

ls

Navigate `cd`

cd is short for change directory

cd home

Find out where you are `pwd`

pwd print working directory

pwd

Create multiple directories

mkdir pictures documents

Create a file `touch`

touch documents/file.txt

touch only creates a file if it doesn't already exist

Chain commands together `&&`

cd documents && ls

Access previous path

cd -

List all subdirectories in current path

ls -lR

l: list

R: list subdirectories recursively

Pipe output to other commands `|`

ls -lR | grep file

grep searches the input for matches

echo "Get excited \nand make things" | grep excited

\n newline character

Redirect output `>`

ls -lR > list.txt

Can be used to create a file with content

echo "get milk" > todo.txt

Read a file without opening in an editor

cat todo.txt

Append text to a file

echo "get cookies" >> todo.txt

Create aliases

alias railsgirlslondon=~/code/railsgirls-london

store aliases in your .bashrc or .zshrc so you don't have to define them all the time

use alias

railsgirlslondon

Use man

man displays the manual for any command

man alias

Bonus

Create a tree alias, this will display a nice structure of your current directory tree

alias tree="find . -print | sed -e 's;[^/]*/;|;g;s;|; |;g'"

Ruby/Rails specific commands

View all available rake tasks

rake -T

Chain rake tasks

rake db:create db:migrate db:seed

create database, run migrations and seed data

Update all gems that don't have a version fixed

bundle update

the gems are specified in the Gemfile

Open a gem in your editor

bundle open mail

Run rails using shortcuts

rails server

rails s

rails console

rails c

despo/the_command_line_is_your_friend.md