Are you a web designer that sometimes need to SSH into a web site and make some changes but don’t know a Unix text editor?  Here are some basic commands that you might need.

Navigating in and out of directores:

To change directories:

pwd (shows you what directory you are in)

ls (lists all files)

cd www (gets you into the directory called www)

cd .. (gets you down one directory)

Editing files.  I like editing files in Vi.  It is confusing if you don’t know it.  I am by no means a Vi expert like some of my friends, but I can do a lot.  Here are the basics:

use the arrow keys to navigate (you can use letters to move around, but if you don’t want to learn Vi, don’t waste your time)

vi filename.php (opens a file called filename.php)

i (gets you in the insert mode)

the escape key gets you out of the insert mode

x (deletes the character your cursor is on)

dd (deletes the whole line you are on)

:w (writes the file)

:q (quits Vi)

:wq (writes the file and exists)

:%s:bob:john:g (replaces bob with john in the whole file, i recently used that to replace text on a 42 meg text file, it came in handy.  it took seconds to do)

Enjoy!