Hello and welcome to the second entry in the “Know your Linux” series.

Haven't read the first entry yet? Please do!

This time let’s talk about Linux's commands and how to write them efficiently.
Let’s just dive right in 🏄‍♂️. Shall we?

Command format

Each command entered in the terminal have three parts:
Command
This is the name of the program you want to execute.
Options
They adjust the program’s behavior. They normally start with one or two dashes ( -a or —all )
Arguments
They are the target that the program will execute on.

Wanna an example? Sure! 👍
Consider the following simple command :

usermod -L morgan

usermod is the name of our command (application) which is used to modify users. The -L option tells the application to lock the password, While morgan is the command’s argument. In short, This command is locking morgan's password.

To use a command effectively. You need to know what it does exactly. You need to know what options and arguments it can take ( The command’s syntax ). But there are tons of options and arguments. How could you possibly know them all? 🙄

Well, you can’t. If only there was some kind of documentation that you can use when stuck 🤔
SPOILER ALERT ✋
There is. Yaaaaaay! 🎉

Know your commands

Actually, there are three cool sources that you can use to find out more about a certain command, application, service, config files and much more.

The call for help

Most commands have a -h or --help option that prints useful info like a description of what the command does ( usage statement ), a list of options and arguments the program expects and what they do.

usermod --help

This usually prints lots of text. It could be inconvenient to scroll through. There is something that we could do though.

usermod --help | less

There are 2 new additions to the command here.

The first thing is the | symbol. This is called a pipe. It is used to send the output of its lefthand side as an input to its righthand side.
The second thing is less command which is a pager. A pager is a program that causes the output of any command to be displayed one screenful at a time for readability and convenience.

There is another program that could be helpful here called grep. Let’s say you want to search for the word "home" in the usermod help text. Here is what you will have to do

usermod --help | grep home

This time we are using the pipe to send the help text to grep. Which filters the text and only print lines with the word "home".

Consult the manual

There exist manual pages that can be viewed using the man command. It takes the name of the program as an argument and displays much more info than the call for help method. For example, you could do

man usermod

That will let you view the manual page associated with the usermod program.

The manual pages provide much more information like configuration files, system calls, library routines, and the kernel. Also, The man program automatically sends its output through a pager for readability and convenience.

Are you thinking what I am thinking? Can we man the man? Sure you can! It's LINUX. come on go try it out.

man man

I really encourage everyone to man stuff up. Even if it’s a command that you are already familiar with. Go check its man page, You might learn a thing or two.

You already did? The manual pages are not enough for you? Want bigger documentation? Do you need to know it all?😮

info / pinfo

They contain a whole lot more than the manual pages. Some people prefer man as it is shorter and straight to the point. While others like to have all the info presented to them. It's a matter of preference. 😊

You can use them just like man

info usermod
pinfo usermod

I know you are asking, What's the difference between info and pinfo? Well, Both have exactly the same content. But pinfo is somewhat more advanced than the original info in terms of interface and formatting. Also, pinfo supports colors. Which is awesome of course! 😎

That’s all from my side. ✋
If you enjoyed the post, please let me know! You can also check the next entry in the series.

As always,
Happy coding 🔥🔥
“كود بسعادة”