Command-line interface

A command-line interface (CLI) is a means of interacting with a

Today, most computer users rely on graphical user interfaces ("GUIs") instead of CLIs. However, many programs and operating system utilities lack GUIs, and are intended to be used through CLIs.

Knowledge of CLIs is also useful for

CLIs are made possible by command-line interpreters or command-line processors, which are programs that read command-lines and carry out the commands.

Alternatives to CLIs include GUIs (most notably

Compared with a graphical user interface, a command-line interface requires fewer system resources to implement. Since options to commands are given in a few characters in each command line, an experienced user often finds the options easier to access. Automation of repetitive tasks is simplified by line editing and history mechanisms for storing frequently used sequences; this may extend to a scripting language that can take parameters and variable options. A command-line history can be kept, allowing review or repetition of commands.

A command-line system may require paper or online manuals for the user's reference, although often a "help" option provides a concise review of the options of a command. The command-line environment may not provide graphical enhancements such as different

Types

Operating system command-line interfaces

Operating system (OS) command-line interfaces are usually distinct programs supplied with the operating system. A program that implements such a text interface is often called a command-line interpreter, command processor or shell.

Examples of command-line interpreters include

Application programs (as opposed to operating systems) may also have command-line interfaces.

An application program may support none, any, or all of these three major types of command-line interface mechanisms:

• Parameters: Most command-line interfaces support a means to pass additional information to a program when it is launched.
• Interactive command-line sessions: After launch, a program may provide an operator with an independent means to enter commands.
• Inter-process communication: Most operating systems support means of inter-process communication (for example, standard streams or named pipes). Command lines from client processes may be redirected to a CLI program by one of these methods.

Some applications support a CLI, presenting their own prompt to the user and accepting command lines. Other programs support both a CLI and a GUI. In some cases, a GUI is simply a

In Colossal Cave Adventure from 1975, the user uses a CLI to enter one or two words to explore a cave system.

History

The command-line interface evolved from a form of communication conducted by people over teleprinter (TTY) machines. Sometimes these involved sending an order or a confirmation using telex. Early computer systems often used teleprinter as the means of interaction with an operator.

The mechanical teleprinter was replaced by a

Early operating system CLIs were implemented as part of resident monitor programs, and could not easily be replaced. The first implementation of the shell as a replaceable component was part of the Multics time-sharing operating system.^[1] In 1964, MIT Computation Center staff member Louis Pouzin developed the RUNCOM tool for executing command scripts while allowing argument substitution.^[2] Pouzin coined the term "shell" to describe the technique of using commands like a programming language, and wrote a paper about how to implement the idea in the Multics operating system.^[3] Pouzin returned to his native France in 1965, and the first Multics shell was developed by Glenda Schroeder.^[2]

The first

, Bash was the default.

Usage

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A CLI is used whenever a large vocabulary of commands or queries, coupled with a wide (or arbitrary) range of options, can be entered more rapidly as text than with a pure GUI. This is typically the case with

) provide an interactive command-line mode to allow for rapid evaluation of code.

CLIs are often used by programmers and system administrators, in engineering and scientific environments, and by technically advanced personal computer users. CLIs are also popular among people with visual disabilities since the commands and responses can be displayed using

refreshable Braille displays

.

Anatomy of a shell CLI

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The general pattern of a command line interface[8]^[9] is:

Prompt command param1 param2 param3 … paramN

• Prompt — generated by the program to provide context for the user.
• Command — provided by the user. Commands are usually one of three classes:
  1. Internal commands are recognized and processed by the command line interpreter.
  2. Included commands run separate executables.
  3. External commands run executable files that may be included by other parties.^{[clarification needed]}
• param1 …paramN — parameters provided by the user. The format and meaning of the parameters depends upon the command. In the case of Included or External commands, the values of the parameters are delivered to the program as it is launched by the OS. Parameters may be either arguments or options.

In this format, the delimiters between command-line elements are whitespace characters and the end-of-line delimiter is the newline delimiter. This is a widely used (but not universal) convention.

A CLI can generally be considered as consisting of

Two different CLIs may agree on either syntax or semantics, but it is only when they agree on both that they can be considered sufficiently similar to allow users to use both CLIs without needing to learn anything, as well as to enable re-use of scripts.

A simple CLI will display a prompt, accept a "command line" typed by the user terminated by the Enter key, then execute the specified command and provide textual display of results or error messages. Advanced CLIs will validate, interpret and parameter-expand the command line before executing the specified command, and optionally capture or redirect its output.

Unlike a button or menu item in a GUI, a command line is typically self-documenting, stating exactly what the user wants done. In addition, command lines usually include many

where doSomething is, in effect, a verb, how an adverb (for example, should the command be executed "verbosely" or "quietly") and toFiles an object or objects (typically one or more files) on which the command should act. The > in the third example is a redirection operator, telling the command-line interpreter to send the output of the command not to its own standard output (the screen) but to the named file. This will overwrite the file. Using >> will redirect the output and append it to the file. Another redirection operator is the vertical bar (|), which creates a pipeline where the output of one command becomes the input to the next command.

CLI and resource protection

One can modify the set of available commands by modifying which paths appear in the PATH environment variable. Under Unix, commands also need be marked as executable files. The directories in the path variable are searched in the order they are given. By re-ordering the path, one can run e.g. \OS2\MDOS\E.EXE instead of \OS2\E.EXE, when the default is the opposite. Renaming of the executables also works: people often rename their favourite editor to EDIT, for example.

The command line allows one to restrict available commands, such as access to advanced internal commands. The Windows

A command prompt (or just prompt) is a sequence of (one or more) characters used in a command-line interface to indicate readiness to accept commands. It literally prompts the user to take action. A prompt usually ends with one of the characters $, %, #,^[10][11] :, > or -^[12] and often includes other information, such as the path of the current working directory and the hostname.

On many Unix and derivative systems, the prompt commonly ends in $ or % if the user is a normal user, but in # if the user is a superuser ("root" in Unix terminology).

End-users can often modify prompts. Depending on the environment, they may include colors, special characters, and other elements (like variables and functions for the current time, user, shell number or working directory) in order, for instance, to make the prompt more informative or visually pleasing, to distinguish sessions on various machines, or to indicate the current level of nesting of commands. On some systems, special tokens in the definition of the prompt can be used to cause external programs to be called by the command-line interpreter while displaying the prompt.

In DOS' COMMAND.COM and in Windows NT's

Many Unix systems feature the $PS1 variable (Prompt String 1),[13] although other variables also may affect the prompt (depending on the shell used). In the Bash shell, a prompt of the form:

[time] user@host: work_dir $

could be set by issuing the command

export PS1='[\t] \u@\H: \W $'

In

In RISC OS the command prompt is a * symbol, and thus (OS) CLI commands are often referred to as "star commands".^[14] One can also access the same commands from other command lines (such as the BBC BASIC command line), by preceding the command with a *.

Arguments

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A command-line argument or parameter is an item of information provided to a program when it is started. A program can have many command-line arguments that identify sources or destinations of information, or that alter the operation of the program.

When a command processor is active a program is typically invoked by typing its name followed by command-line arguments (if any). For example, in Unix and Unix-like environments, an example of a command-line argument is:

rm file.s

"file.s" is a command-line argument which tells the program rm to remove the file "file.s".

Some programming languages, such as

A command-line option or simply option (also known as a flag or switch) modifies the operation of a command; the effect is determined by the command's program. Options follow the command name on the command line, separated by spaces. A space before the first option is not always required, such as Dir/? and DIR /? in DOS, which have the same effect[12] of listing the DIR command's available options, whereas dir --help (in many versions of Unix) does require the option to be preceded by at least one space (and is case-sensitive).

The format of options varies widely between operating systems. In most cases the syntax is by convention rather than an operating system requirement; the entire command line is simply a string passed to a program, which can process it in any way the programmer wants, so long as the interpreter can tell where the command name ends and its arguments and options begin.

A few representative samples of command-line options, all relating to listing files in a directory, to illustrate some conventions:

Abbreviating commands

In

In some other systems abbreviations are automatic, such as permitting enough of the first characters of a command name to uniquely identify it (such as SU as an abbreviation for SUPERUSER) while others may have some specific abbreviations pre-programmed (e.g. MD for

• Options may be indicated by either of the "switch characters": /, -, or either may be allowed. See below.
• They may or may not be
  case-sensitive
  .
• Sometimes options and their arguments are run together, sometimes separated by whitespace, and sometimes by a character, typically : or =; thus Prog -fFilename, Prog -f Filename, Prog -f:Filename, Prog -f=Filename.
• Some programs allow single-character options to be combined;[12] others do not. The switch -fA may mean the same as -f -A,^[12] or it may be incorrect, or it may even be a valid but different parameter.

In

However, many programs are hardwired to use / only, rather than retrieving the switch setting before parsing command-line arguments. A very small number, mainly ports from Unix-like systems, are programmed to accept "-" even if the switch character is not set to it (for example netstat and ping, supplied with Microsoft Windows, will accept the /? option to list available options, and yet the list will specify the "-" convention).

Option conventions in Unix-like systems

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In Unix-like systems, the ASCII hyphen-minus begins options; the new (and GNU) convention is to use two hyphens then a word (e.g. --create) to identify the option's use while the old convention (and still available as an option for frequently-used options) is to use one hyphen then one letter (e.g., -c); if one hyphen is followed by two or more letters it may mean two options are being specified, or it may mean the second and subsequent letters are a parameter (such as filename or date) for the first option.^[18]

Two hyphen-minus characters without following letters (--) may indicate that the remaining arguments should not be treated as options, which is useful for example if a file name itself begins with a hyphen, or if further arguments are meant for an inner command (e.g., sudo). Double hyphen-minuses are also sometimes used to prefix "long options" where more descriptive option names are used. This is a common feature of GNU software. The getopt function and program, and the getopts command are usually used for parsing command-line options.

Unix command names, arguments and options are case-sensitive (except in a few examples, mainly where popular commands from other operating systems have been ported to Unix).

Option conventions in other systems

CP/M typically used [.

Conversational Monitor System (CMS) uses a single left parenthesis to separate options at the end of the command from the other arguments. For example, in the following command the options indicate that the target file should be replaced if it exists, and the date and time of the source file should be retained on the copy: COPY source file a target file b (REPLACE OLDDATE)

Data General's CLI under their RDOS, AOS, etc. operating systems, as well as the version of CLI that came with their Business Basic, uses only / as the switch character, is case-insensitive, and allows "local switches" on some arguments to control the way they are interpreted, such as MAC/U LIB/S A B C $LPT/L has the global option "U" to the macro assembler command to append user symbols, but two local switches, one to specify LIB should be skipped on pass 2 and the other to direct listing to the printer, $LPT.

Built-in usage help

One of the criticisms of a CLI is the lack of cues to the user as to the available actions.^{[citation needed]} In contrast, GUIs usually inform the user of available actions with menus, icons, or other visual cues.^{[citation needed]} To overcome this limitation, many CLI programs display a usage message, typically when invoked with no arguments or one of ?, -?, -h, -H, /?, /h, /H, /Help, -help, or --help.^[12][19][20]

However, entering a program name without parameters in the hope that it will display usage help can be hazardous, as programs and scripts for which command line arguments are optional will execute without further notice.

Although desirable at least for the help parameter, programs may not support all option lead-in characters exemplified above. Under DOS, where the default

In some cases, different levels of help can be selected for a program. Some programs supporting this allow to give a verbosity level as an optional argument to the help parameter (as in /H:1, /H:2, etc.) or they give just a short help on help parameters with question mark and a longer help screen for the other help options.^[21]

Depending on the program, additional or more specific help on accepted parameters is sometimes available by either providing the parameter in question as an argument to the help parameter or vice versa (as in /H:W or in /W:? (assuming /W would be another parameter supported by the program)).^{[22][23][20][19][21][nb 1]}

In a similar fashion to the help parameter, but much less common, some programs provide additional information about themselves (like mode, status, version, author, license or contact information) when invoked with an "about" parameter like -!, /!, -about, or --about.^[19]

Since the ? and ! characters typically also serve other purposes at the command line, they may not be available in all scenarios, therefore, they should not be the only options to access the corresponding help information.

If more detailed help is necessary than provided by a program's built-in internal help, many systems support a dedicated external "help command" command (or similar), which accepts a command name as calling parameter and will invoke an external help system.

In the DR-DOS family, typing /? or /H at the

Built-in usage help and man pages commonly employ a small syntax to describe the valid command form:^{[24][25][26][nb 2]}

• angle brackets for required parameters: ping <hostname>
• square brackets for optional parameters: mkdir [-p] <dirname>
• ellipses for repeated items: cp <source1> [source2…] <dest>
• vertical bars for choice of items: netstat {-t|-u}

Notice that these characters have different meanings than when used directly in the shell. Angle brackets may be omitted when confusing the parameter name with a literal string is not likely.

The space character

In many areas of computing, but particularly in the command line, the

are not ambiguous. Unix-based operating systems minimize the use of embedded spaces to minimize the need for quotes. In Microsoft Windows, one often has to use quotes because embedded spaces (such as in directory names) are common.

Command-line interpreter

Although most users think of the shell as an interactive command interpreter, it is really a programming language in which each statement runs a command. Because it must satisfy both the interactive and programming aspects of command execution, it is a strange language, shaped as much by history as by design.

— 

Brian W. Kernighan & Rob Pike^[27]

The term command-line interpreter (CLI) is applied to computer programs designed to interpret a sequence of lines of text which may be entered by a user, read from a file or another kind of data stream. The context of interpretation is usually one of a given operating system or programming language.

Command-line interpreters allow users to issue various commands in a very efficient (and often terse) way. This requires the user to know the names of the commands and their parameters, and the syntax of the language that is interpreted.

The Unix #! mechanism and OS/2 EXTPROC command facilitate the passing of batch files to external processors. One can use these mechanisms to write specific command processors for dedicated uses, and process external data files which reside in batch files.

Many graphical interfaces, such as the OS/2 Presentation Manager and early versions of Microsoft Windows use command-lines to call helper programs to open documents and programs. The commands are stored in the graphical shell^{[clarification needed]} or in files like the registry or the OS/2 OS2USER.INI file.

Early history

The earliest computers did not support interactive input/output devices, often relying on sense switches and lights to communicate with the computer operator. This was adequate for batch systems that ran one program at a time, often with the programmer acting as operator. This also had the advantage of low overhead, since lights and switches could be tested and set with one machine instruction. Later a single system console was added to allow the operator to communicate with the system.

From the 1960s onwards, user interaction with computers was primarily by means of command-line interfaces, initially on machines like the

All of these devices were purely text based, with no ability to display graphic or pictures.[nb 3] For business application programs, text-based menus were used, but for more general interaction the command line was the interface.

Around 1964

From the early 1970s the

The command-line was also the main interface for the early home computers such as the

• The default VAX/VMS command shell, using the DCL language, has been ported to Windows systems at least three times, including PC-DCL and Acceler8 DCL Lite. Unix command shells have been ported to VMS and DOS/Windows 95 and Windows NT types of operating systems.
• ROM-DOS, and FreeDOS
  .
• Windows Resource Kit and Windows Services for UNIX include Korn and the Bourne shells along with a Perl interpreter (Services for UNIX contains ActiveState ActivePerl in later versions and Interix for versions 1 and 2 and a shell compiled by Microsoft)
• IBM OS/2 (and derivatives such as
  REXX
  .
• cmd.exe is part of the Windows NT stream of operating systems.
• Yet another cmd.exe is a stripped-down shell for
  Windows CE
  3.0.
• An MS-DOS type interpreter called PocketDOS has been ported to Windows CE machines; the most recent release is almost identical to MS-DOS 6.22 and can also run Windows 1, 2, and 3.0, QBasic and other development tools, 4NT and 4DOS. The latest release includes several shells, namely MS-DOS 6.22, PC DOS 7, DR DOS 3.xx, and others.
• Windows users might use the
  zsh
  , psh
• Implementations of PHP have a shell for interactive use called php-cli.
• Standard
  Tcl/Tk
  has two interactive shells, Tclsh and Wish, the latter being the GUI version.
• Python, Ruby, Lua, XLNT, and other interpreters also have command shells for interactive use.
• FreeBSD uses tcsh as its default interactive shell for the superuser, and ash as default scripting shell.
• Many Linux distributions have the Bash implementation of the Unix shell.
• Apple macOS and some Linux distributions use zsh. Previously, macOS used tcsh and Bash.
• Busybox
  .
• Android uses the mksh shell,^[32][33] which replaces a shell derived from ash^[34] that was used in older Android versions, supplemented with commands from the separate toolbox^[35] binary.
• Routers with
  Junos^[37]
  and many others are commonly configured from the command line.
• The Plan 9 operating system uses the rc shell which is similar in design to the Bourne shell.

Scripting

Most command-line interpreters support

Conversely,

The command line provides an interface between programs as well as the user. In this sense, a command line is an alternative to a dialog box. Editors and databases present a command line, in which alternate command processors might run. On the other hand, one might have options on the command line, which opens a dialog box. The latest version of 'Take Command' has this feature. DBase used a dialog box to construct command lines, which could be further edited before use.

Programs like BASIC, diskpart, Edlin, and QBASIC all provide command-line interfaces, some of which use the system shell. Basic is modeled on the default interface for 8-bit Intel computers. Calculators can be run as command-line or dialog interfaces.

Emacs provides a command-line interface in the form of its minibuffer. Commands and arguments can be entered using Emacs standard text editing support, and output is displayed in another buffer.

There are a number of text mode games, like