Unix Research Paper
A utility in Unix is considered to be a standard application program which is included with most Unix systems. Unix contains many utilities; technically speaking almost all commands could be considered utilities. Therefore anyone who has ever logged onto a Unix system has used one of its utilities in some way or another. Some utilities are very simple operations while others are complex programs which contain their own sets of commands. While not true of all utilities, the majority of Unix utilities fall into one of three categories: editors, filters, and communication programs.
Editors are used for creating and modifying text files. Ed, Ex, Vi, and Emacs are the standard Unix editors. Many systems may also have other popular word processors such as WordPerfect and Word. Ed and Ex are called line editors because they display and edit only one line at a time, while Vi and Emacs are considered full-screen editors. All the standard editors were developed for earlier machines that couldn’t handle full screen cursor movement the way today’s PC word processors can. Even though Vi and Emacs have full-screen capability, they are not as easy to use as many mouse-driven word processors. In spite of this, these editors are very powerful. They have a large set of commands that can be combined allowing for much greater control than many mouse driven editors associated with today’s PC’s.
The second set of utilities are known as filters. Filters are special Unix utilities that can read from the standard input (a user, a file, or some other source), process the data, and produce output. There are many different types of filters. Some use line editing commands to produce edited versions of a file. Others search files for patterns and filter out all data except that which matches the given pattern. As stated earlier the input for a filter does not have to be a file. It can be data input by the user from the keyboard, or filters can be connected together so that the output of one becomes the input of another. There is a very powerful filter programming language called awk that enables you to write your own filters. Two examples of filters standard in almost any Unix environment are the sort and cat utilities.
Unix also has a set of communication utilities. These utilities allow you to communicate with other users on your own system or other systems. Unix is a multi-user system and must maintain contact with all its users. It is easy to implement an electronic mail system in which messages can be sent to and received in Unix because of the basic interconnectivity of the Unix file structure. You can even broadcast messages to several users at once, or directly connect to another user and carry on a real time conversation. Examples of such utilities include write, and wall to name a few.
The majority of Unix utilities fall into one of three categories: editors, filters, and communication programs. However with an operating system such as Unix it is nearly impossible to categorize all possibilities with regard to any one topic. This is no less true when it comes to a discussion of utilities.
Editors are used for creating and modifying text files. Ed, Ex, Vi, and Emacs are the standard Unix editors. Many systems may also have other popular word processors such as WordPerfect and Word. Ed and Ex are called line editors because they display and edit only one line at a time, while Vi and Emacs are considered full-screen editors. All the standard editors were developed for earlier machines that couldn’t handle full screen cursor movement the way today’s PC word processors can. Even though Vi and Emacs have full-screen capability, they are not as easy to use as many mouse-driven word processors. In spite of this, these editors are very powerful. They have a large set of commands that can be combined allowing for much greater control than many mouse driven editors associated with today’s PC’s.
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The second set of utilities are known as filters. Filters are special Unix utilities that can read from the standard input (a user, a file, or some other source), process the data, and produce output. There are many different types of filters. Some use line editing commands to produce edited versions of a file. Others search files for patterns and filter out all data except that which matches the given pattern. As stated earlier the input for a filter does not have to be a file. It can be data input by the user from the keyboard, or filters can be connected together so that the output of one becomes the input of another. There is a very powerful filter programming language called awk that enables you to write your own filters. Two examples of filters standard in almost any Unix environment are the sort and cat utilities.
Unix also has a set of communication utilities. These utilities allow you to communicate with other users on your own system or other systems. Unix is a multi-user system and must maintain contact with all its users. It is easy to implement an electronic mail system in which messages can be sent to and received in Unix because of the basic interconnectivity of the Unix file structure. You can even broadcast messages to several users at once, or directly connect to another user and carry on a real time conversation. Examples of such utilities include write, and wall to name a few.
The majority of Unix utilities fall into one of three categories: editors, filters, and communication programs. However with an operating system such as Unix it is nearly impossible to categorize all possibilities with regard to any one topic. This is no less true when it comes to a discussion of utilities.
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