command-line program examples

Destry · 2016-09-23 11:50:37

In this Anatomy of the CLI, it talks about three classes of programs that can be executed:

internal
included
external

I’m trying to understand what the difference is by thinking of programs I’m familiar with that would go in each classification as it concerns macOS. Suggestions?

I’m assuming internal means commands like ls, cd, mkdir, etc.

And external is probably things like brew, curl, git, mysql

But what is included?

Where would these fall, as examples? ipconfig, top, ssh, svn

I’d just like to get about 4 or 5 recognizable example in each class.

Bloke · 2016-09-23 12:11:52

Destry wrote #301704:

I’m assuming internal means commands like ls, cd, mkdir, etc.

Yup, and from your list that also applies to ipconfig (also ifconfig in Unixland) and top too, as I believe they’re native OS commands. Might be wrong about ifconfig, at least according to this list.

Next up, ssh and curl. Both extensions, but usually included as standard. apt-get might be another, as it’s prevalent on Debian-based installations (others distros tend to use yum or old-school rpm). Everything else you mentioned is usually user-installed, so is in the third category.

Some distros lean more towards specialist niches, so they might have (for example) a LAMP stack pre-installed. I guess you could then call those included for that particular distro, although they’re not standard across many, so the wider picture is that they’re still external.

That’s my take on it, at least. Grey areas aplenty. One man’s essential is another’s nice-to-have.

Destry · 2016-09-23 12:22:55

Thank, Bloke. That helps a lot. I was not too far off the mark then. So it’s just a matter of knowing what is or isn’t already installed, I guess.

E.g. composer and grunt would certainly count as external, whereas lipo and say might be two more included?

Bloke · 2016-09-23 12:35:26

Destry wrote #301706:

composer and grunt would certainly count as external

Yup.

whereas lipo and say might be two more included?

With ~~OSX~~ macOS, yes I’d say so. They’re Apple extensions to the core Linux command set, but they are included with every release.

Destry · 2016-09-23 12:35:31

Here’s an A-Z list of macOS commands, but I think it lumps internal and included together?

Destry · 2016-09-23 12:36:52

Bloke wrote #301707:

They’re Apple extensions to the core Linux command set…

Ah, that’s the distinguisher I needed. Thanks.

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#1 2016-09-23 11:50:37