Lesson 2: File Operations

Goal: Learn to create, copy, move, rename, delete files and directories, and work with links.

Table of Contents

1. Create Files — touch
2. File Timestamps — stat
3. Create Directories — mkdir
4. Copy — cp
5. Move & Rename — mv
6. Delete — rm & rmdir
7. Links — ln
8. Secure Delete — shred
9. Exercises

Create Files — touch

touch creates an empty file or updates the timestamp of an existing file.

Create a new file

touch myfile.txt

Create multiple files at once

touch file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt

Create files with patterns

# Create report-01.txt through report-05.txt
touch report-{01..05}.txt

# Create files with different extensions
touch readme.{md,txt,html}

Verify the files were created

ls -la myfile.txt

Output:

-rw-r--r-- 1 benjamin benjamin 0 Mar 22 10:00 myfile.txt

Notice the size is 0 — the file is empty.

File Timestamps — stat

Every file in Linux has three timestamps. stat shows them all.

stat myfile.txt

Output:

  File: myfile.txt
  Size: 0          Blocks: 0          IO Block: 4096   regular empty file
Access: 2026-03-22 10:00:00.000000000 +0100
Modify: 2026-03-22 10:00:00.000000000 +0100
Change: 2026-03-22 10:00:00.000000000 +0100
 Birth: 2026-03-22 10:00:00.000000000 +0100

Modify timestamps with touch

# Update access and modify time to now
touch myfile.txt

# Set a specific timestamp
touch -t 202501151200 myfile.txt
# Format: YYYYMMDDhhmm → Jan 15, 2025 at 12:00

# Copy timestamp from another file
touch -r reference.txt myfile.txt

# Change only the access time
touch -a myfile.txt

# Change only the modification time
touch -m myfile.txt

Create Directories — mkdir

Create a single directory

mkdir projects

Create nested directories

Without -p, this fails if projects doesn't exist:

# This fails:
mkdir projects/web/frontend

# This works — creates all parent directories:
mkdir -p projects/web/frontend

Create multiple directories at once

mkdir -p project/{src,tests,docs,config}

Result:

project/
├── config/
├── docs/
├── src/
└── tests/

Complex nested structure in one command

mkdir -p myapp/{src/{components,utils,styles},tests,public/{images,fonts},docs}

Result:

myapp/
├── docs/
├── public/
│   ├── fonts/
│   └── images/
├── src/
│   ├── components/
│   ├── styles/
│   └── utils/
└── tests/

Copy — cp

Copy a file

cp original.txt copy.txt

Copy a file to another directory

cp myfile.txt /home/benjamin/Documents/

Copy and rename

cp myfile.txt /home/benjamin/Documents/renamed.txt

Copy a directory (requires -r)

# Without -r, this fails for directories
cp -r projects/ projects-backup/

Useful flags

# Interactive — ask before overwriting
cp -i original.txt copy.txt

# Verbose — show what's being copied
cp -v original.txt copy.txt
# Output: 'original.txt' -> 'copy.txt'

# Preserve permissions, timestamps, and ownership
cp -p original.txt copy.txt

# Combine: recursive, verbose, preserve attributes
cp -rvp projects/ projects-backup/

Copy multiple files to a directory

cp file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt /home/benjamin/Documents/

# Using wildcards
cp *.txt /home/benjamin/Documents/
cp *.{jpg,png} /home/benjamin/Pictures/

Move & Rename — mv

mv does two things: move files and rename them.

Rename a file

mv oldname.txt newname.txt

Move a file to another directory

mv myfile.txt /home/benjamin/Documents/

Move and rename simultaneously

mv myfile.txt /home/benjamin/Documents/renamed.txt

Move multiple files

mv file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt /home/benjamin/Documents/
mv *.log /var/log/archive/

Move a directory

# No -r needed (unlike cp)
mv projects/ /home/benjamin/Documents/

Useful flags

# Interactive — ask before overwriting
mv -i oldfile.txt newfile.txt

# Verbose — show what's being moved
mv -v myfile.txt /tmp/
# Output: renamed 'myfile.txt' -> '/tmp/myfile.txt'

# Don't overwrite existing files
mv -n source.txt destination.txt

Delete — rm & rmdir

Delete a file

rm myfile.txt

Delete with confirmation

rm -i myfile.txt
# Prompt: rm: remove regular file 'myfile.txt'? y

Delete multiple files

rm file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt
rm *.tmp
rm *.log

Delete an empty directory

rmdir empty-folder/

Delete a directory and all its contents

rm -r projects/

Force delete (no confirmation, no errors for missing files)

rm -rf old-project/

Safe practice: use verbose mode

rm -rv old-project/

This shows every file being deleted, so you can see what's happening.

Links — ln

Linux has two types of links: symbolic links (symlinks) and hard links.

Symbolic links (soft links)

A symlink is a shortcut — a pointer to another file or directory.

# Create a symbolic link
ln -s /path/to/original /path/to/link

# Example: create a shortcut to a config file
ln -s /etc/nginx/nginx.conf ~/nginx-config

# Example: create a shortcut to a directory
ln -s /var/log ~/logs

Verify with ls -l:

ls -l ~/nginx-config
# Output: lrwxrwxrwx 1 benjamin benjamin 23 Mar 22 10:00 nginx-config -> /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

The l at the start means "link", and the -> shows what it points to.

Hard links

A hard link is a second name for the same file data on disk.

ln original.txt hardlink.txt

Key differences:

Check link count

stat original.txt | grep Links
# Output: Links: 2  (if one hard link exists)

Remove a link

rm ~/nginx-config    # removes the symlink, not the original
unlink ~/nginx-config  # alternative way

Secure Delete — shred

Regular rm doesn't actually erase data — it just removes the reference. shred overwrites the file data before deleting.

# Overwrite and delete a file
shred -vuz secret.txt

Flags:

• -v — verbose (show progress)
• -u — delete the file after overwriting
• -z — add a final overwrite with zeros (hide shredding)
• -n 5 — overwrite 5 times (default is 3)

# Overwrite 10 times, then delete
shred -vuzn 10 confidential.pdf

Exercises

Exercise 1: File creation and inspection

# 1. Create a project directory structure
mkdir -p myproject/{src,tests,docs}

# 2. Create some files
touch myproject/src/{main.py,utils.py,config.py}
touch myproject/tests/test_main.py
touch myproject/docs/README.md

# 3. Verify the structure
tree myproject/

# 4. Check the timestamps of main.py
stat myproject/src/main.py

Exercise 2: Copy and move

# 1. Copy the entire project as a backup
cp -rv myproject/ myproject-backup/

# 2. Rename a file
mv myproject/src/config.py myproject/src/settings.py

# 3. Move docs into src
mv myproject/docs/ myproject/src/

# 4. Verify
tree myproject/

Exercise 3: Links

# 1. Create a file with content
echo "Hello World" > original.txt

# 2. Create a symbolic link
ln -s original.txt symlink.txt

# 3. Create a hard link
ln original.txt hardlink.txt

# 4. Read through both links
cat symlink.txt
cat hardlink.txt

# 5. Delete the original and test both links
rm original.txt
cat hardlink.txt   # still works!
cat symlink.txt    # broken link — error!

Key Takeaways

• touch — create files or update timestamps
• mkdir -p — create nested directory structures
• cp -r — copy files and directories
• mv — move and rename (same command)
• rm -r — delete directories (use with caution!)
• ln -s — create symbolic links (shortcuts)
• shred — securely erase sensitive files

Next Lesson: Lesson 3: Viewing & Reading Files →