Skip to content

Command Line

You're going to use the command line to set up and use your initial development environment.

Create Working Folders

Open a terminal.

The terminal application gives you access to a shell command line. * This command line interface or CLI is the most basic and powerful way to access your system. * Your continued mastery of the shell will give you much higher productivity than you can achieve without it.

We'll start laying out a directory structure and setting up the files we'll need to get started.

mkdir ~/SD  # You probably already created this for Prework. If not, create it now.
cd ~/SD
mkdir Java Tools
* In the shell, tilde (~) represents your account's home directory, /Users/yournamehere * The cd command changes your shell's current location in the file system. * The mkdir (make directory) creates a new folder (we use the terms "folder" and "directory" interchangably). * You can give it multiple directory names (Java and Tools, in this case) and it will create them all.

  • The ls command lists files.
  • ls -l shows a long listing that includes file size, permissions, modification time, and other information.

Download and Extract Student Files

Download Student Files.

Copy the student files ZIP into the Java folder, and unzip it there.

cd ~/SD/Java
cp ~/Downloads/commandline.zip .   # That's a space and a . at the end of the command.
unzip commandline.zip
cd jfop
ls
* The cp ("copy") command copies a file or files - it takes an existing filename and a new name or location to copy it to. * The .. ("dot-dot") represents your parent directory, one level up. * The . ("dot") represents your current working directory, wherever that may be. * The unzip command extracts a ZIP archive. * In this case, extracting commandline.zip creates a subdirectory named jfop/.

Prev -- Up