Shell Scripting Tutorial-7: Create Copies; Links to Files & Directories Video Lecture | Shell Scripting: Discovering to Automate Command-Line Tasks - Back-End Programming

hello guys my name is mother and welcome
to my channel this is the seventh
tutorial in the series of tutorials on
shell programming in this tutorial we'll
first check out the CP command CP is
used to copy files from one location to
the other
and what i mean by that is let me first
create a file i'll use touch to create a
file called old that's called the salt
and if i press enter then my father is
created and i can show it to you guys in
the home folder right here now if
suppose i want to copy this file old
from the home folder to the music folder
which is currently ok this has this by
random i'll delete it so that we don't
cause any confusion but the music folder
as you can see now is empty and what I
wish to do is I wish to copy this file
from this location to the home folder
sorry the music folder now the command
to do that is I'll type in CP first and
then type in the name of my file which
is old and then I'll type in the address
now I'll first have to type in music
since that is the directory in which I
want to create a copy and then I'll put
in the slash and then I'll type in a
name for my father in the music folder
we'll call it old underscore music and
if I now type in sorry press enter then
a copy would have been created and we
can see inside the music folder that I
have my file all underscored music now
CP is different from mV don't confuse
the two commands MV when you rename a
file another copy of a file is not
created so if I would have used MV here
instead of CP then this part would have
existed here instead another file of the
name all underscore music would have
existed in the music folder in this file
would have been erased
so that's there that's the difference
between MV & CP I don't think
have to elaborate further on that now
the next thing that we're going to check
out is the concept of links now what are
links links can be of two kinds the
first is the soft kind and the second is
the hard kind well literally and what I
mean is if you execute personally to
create a link the command that you use
as Ln so if I type in Ln and provide a
file name let's say I want to create a
link for my file all and if I type in
new here and press Enter
then I can see in my home folder I have
one file old and not file new now both
these files are currently blank I can
show it to you guys see old doesn't have
any text and new doesn't have any text
either right
but if suppose I type in some text in
old like you know anything some random
stuff hey what's up and if I save it
then the same thing will also be present
in my new file since it is a hard link
to my old file you see earlier Nutan
have any text it was just a link for old
but now when I put in text and old and
save the file
I also have the same text in new so new
here is acting as a replica to my old
file whatever changes I make to old will
be reflected in new another kind of link
that we can have is soft link now in
order to create a soft link you have to
use Ln but this time with hyphen s
option and I'll have to as I did earlier
provide the name of my file if suppose I
want to create a soft link for all I can
call this one old underscore soft and if
I press ENTER I can see that in my home
folder I have this file all underscore
soft and it's a soft link and you know
you can see that the icon is slightly
different from the icon of new which is
a hard link
now if I delete the old file right then
the two links remain new as well as all
underscore soft now new will remain
intact nothing would happen to it it
won't be damaged because it was hard
link and it's basically a replica for my
file but old underscore soft since it is
a soft link if I try to open it the
system tells me that the link cannot be
used because its target old doesn't
exist and it's broken so I'll have to
move it to trash so there you go that's
the difference between soft and hard
link a hard link is nothing but a copy
of a file or if you create a link to a
dietary then a hard link is a copy of a
directory and it will occupy the same
space as the Drude directory or root
file whereas a soft link is nothing but
a pointer or a reference that the system
uses to you know point to the address of
the original file or directory so links
will prove to be very handy as we move
along the course for now that's it
that's all I wanted to talk about and
I'll see you guys in the next tutorial
we'll be checking out another really
very important command the LS command so
stick with me and thank you for watching
this one subscribe to my channel that's
it