Abstract
Text files are a mainstay of Unix operating systems. From the password file, /etc/passwd, to server configuration files, such as httpd.conf (exact location varies, depending on the system), a computer’s behavior is controlled by text files. But what is a text file? E-mail and Usenet messages are text files; HTML web pages are text files; shell scripts are text files; log files are text files. Text files are human-readable and can be edited with any text editor. They can, of course, be viewed, manipulated, and edited with shell scripts.
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© 2015 Chris F. A. Johnson and Jayant Varma
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Johnson, C.F.A., Varma, J. (2015). Chapter 2: Playing with Files: Viewing, Manipulating, and Editing Text Files. In: Shell Scripting Recipes. Apress, Berkeley, CA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-0220-3_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-0220-3_2
Publisher Name: Apress, Berkeley, CA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4842-0221-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4842-0220-3
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