Example of Unix commands implemented in Java

Silveira — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:42:31 +0000

I created some illustrative and simple implementations of common Unix commands. For those who are familiar with Unix-like systems them make easier to understand Java. For those who are familiar with Java them make easier to understand Unix-like systems. :-)

1. PWD

The first one is pwd that show the current working directory.

public class Jpwd {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String pwd = System.getProperty("user.dir");
        System.out.println(pwd);
    }
}

Running this at /home/silveira directory gives us as output:

$ java Jpwd

/home/silveira

1. CAT

The command cat is usually utilized for displaying files.

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;
 
public class Jcat {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        if(args.length==1){
            try {
                FileReader fileReader = new FileReader(args[0]);
                BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(fileReader);
                String line;
                while((line = in.readLine())!= null){
                    System.out.println(line);
                }
            } catch (FileNotFoundException ex) {
                System.out.println(args[0]+", file not found.");
            }
            catch (IOException ex) {
                System.out.println(args[0]+", input/output error.");
            }
        }
    }
}

$ java Jcat /etc/timezone

America/Fortaleza

3. LS

The command ls is to list files. The File API (java.io.File) is very flexible and portable, but in this example I want just list files and directories of the current directory.

import java.io.File;
 
public class Jls {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        File dir = new File(System.getProperty("user.dir"));
        String childs[] = dir.list();
        for(String child: childs){
            System.out.println(child);
        }
    }
}

Usage:

$ java Jpwd

/home/silveira/example

$ java Jls

directoryA

fileA

.somefile

~~4. CD~~

The cd command changes the current working directory.

import java.io.File;
 
public class Jcd {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        if(args.length==1){
            File dir = new File(args[0]);
            if(dir.isDirectory()==true) {
                System.setProperty("user.dir", dir.getAbsolutePath());
            } else {
                System.out.println(args[0] + "is not a directory.");
            }
        }
    }
}

Usage:

$ java Jpwd
/home/silveira
$ java Jcd /tmp
$ java Jpwd
/tmp

Terminal with colors in OpenSolaris

Silveira — Thu, 08 May 2008 02:51:25 +0000

As the earlies versions of OpenSolaris, my terminal is without colors. That’s a little annoying. As the default user uses Bash you can configure your Bash options in the file ~/.bashrc. Insert in the last lines of your .bashrc file:

alias ls=’ls –color=auto’

Save, close and open your terminal (or just type source ~/.bashrc).

Silveira Neto » ls

Example of Unix commands implemented in Java

Terminal with colors in OpenSolaris