Learn Linux Shell Scripting - Fundamentals of Bash 4.4

Using flags on the command line

Perhaps you haven't realized it yet, but most commands you use on the command line use a combination of positional arguments and flags. The most basic command in Linux, cd, uses a single positional argument: the directory you want to move to.

It does actually have two flags that you can use as well: -L and -P. The purpose of these flags is niche and not worth explaining here. Almost all commands use both flags and positional arguments complementarily.

So then, when do we use which? As a rule of thumb, flags are often used for modifiers, while positional arguments are used for targets. A target is simple this is: the thing you want to manipulate with the command. In the case of ls, this means that the positional ...