Coreutils Coreutils is a package of GNU software containing many of the basic tools such as cat, ls, and rm needed for Unix-like operating systems to function. It is a combination of a number of earlier packages, including textutils, shellutils, and fileutils along with some other miscellaneous utilties. Coreutils versus traditional Unix programs The GNU core utilities support long options as parameters to the commands, and the "--help" option is also available to provide some fairly verbose information about what the program is, and how it is to be used. This is in contrast to more traditional Unix operating systems, which generally don't support long options, and usually only have very terse help screens (if they exist at all). For instance, if a user doesn't know how to use the cat program on a GNU/Linux machine, that person could just type in "cat --help" and get idea of what the program does. [mike@3po][~]$ cat --help Usage: cat [OPTION] [FILE]... Concatenate FILE(s), or standard input, to standard output. -A, --show-all equivalent to -vET -b, --number-nonblank number nonblank output lines -e equivalent to -vE -E, --show-ends display $ at end of each line -n, --number number all output lines -r, --reversible use \ to make the output reversible, implies -v -s, --squeeze-blank never more than one single blank line -t equivalent to -vT -T, --show-tabs display TAB characters as ^I -u (ignored) -v, --show-nonprinting use ^ and M- notation, except for LFD and TAB --help display this help and exit --version output version information and exit With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input. Report bugs to . In contrast, the cat program on a Solaris 8 machine does not produce very useful information. hick0088@garnet ~>$ cat --help cat: illegal option -- - usage: cat [ -usvtebn ] [-|file] ... Programs included in coreutils The Debian package coreutils-5.2.1-2 contains these programs: basename cat chgrp chmod chown chroot cksum comm cp csplit cut date dd df dir dircolors dirname du echo env expand expr factor false fmt fold groups head hostid id install join link ln logname ls md5sum.textutils mkdir mkfifo mknod mv nice nl nohup od paste pathchk pinky pr printenv printf ptx pwd readlink rm rmdir seq sha1sum shred sleep sort split stat stty sum sync tac tail tee test touch tr true tsort tty uname unexpand uniq unlink users vdir wc who whoami yes This list was generated by running the command dlocate -ls coreutils | grep "[^\[]\*$" | sed "s%.*/%%" | sed "s%\*%%g" | sort -u | sed "s%\(.*\)%\* [[\1 (Unix)|\1]]%" In addition, coreutils contains a program called [. It has similar functionality to the program test. See also List of Unix programs BusyBox coreutils like package for embedded linux External link Coreutils homepage Manual FAVORITE ARTICLES: History of the World    History of the United States    History of Europe    Ancient History    History    Military History    World War I    Bombing of Dresden    California    US Constitution    Frank Sinatra    Boston    Marbury v. Madison This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html You may copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license. You must provide a link to http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html To view or edit this article at Wikipedia go to http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coreutils