Appendix: Commands

This is a list of all commands mentioned in this book and how to find them on-line. All referenced utilities are open-source.

Aspell: A replacement of ispell with greater word-suggestion power and support for non-ASCII input. Available at aspell.net under the GPL.
Cat: Output a file directly to the terminal. This utility is standardised by POSIX.1-2008.
Col: Filters line-feeds, usually used to strip backspaces from encoded documents. Originally in Version 6 AT&T UNIX, standardised in POSIX.1-2008.
Cvs: A revision management system (the concurrent version system). Originally a client-server extension to prior revision systems. Non-standard. Available under the GPL at savannah.nongnu.org/projects/cvs or the ISC license at www.opencvs.org.
Echo: Echo input arguments back to the terminal. This utility is standardised by POSIX.1-2008.
Demandoc: Remove all mdoc (and other UNIX manual format) control statements from a file by formally parsing input (via mandoc). Built to replace deroff for mdoc UNIX manuals. Non-standard. Available under the ISC license at mdocml.bsd.lv.
Deroff: Remove [most] roff control statements from a file. This utility uses heuristics instead of properly parsing its input. Originally in Version 7 AT&T UNIX (if not before?) and used heavily by the Writer's Workbench. Non-standard. Available under the Lucent Public License at heirloom.sf.net/tools.html and under the GPL at marmaro.de/prog/deroff.
Diction: Checks the diction of a (German or English) document. Originally in the Version 6 AT&T UNIX Writer's Workbench. Non-standard. A GPL version is available at www.gnu.org/s/diction.
Ditroff: A historical utility merging the code-bases of the original nroff and troff into a device-independent utility. All modern nroff and troff utilities are implemented by a ditroff implementation such as groff. A version of the pre-groff utility is available under the Lucent Public License at heirloom.sf.net/doctools.html.
Dump: Backup a file-system. This utility isn't standardised, but appears on most modern UNIX implementations regardless. Dumped file-systems may be restored with the dual restore utility.
Ed: Edit a file line by line on a terminal. This utility is standardised by POSIX.1-2008. It is the first editor to be bundled with UNIX, extending to Version 1 AT&T UNIX.
Ex: Extends ed to operate in visual (screen) mode. This utility is standardised by POSIX.1-2008. It first appeared in Version 8 AT&T UNIX, and is usually invoked as a special mode of vi.
Fsck: A file-system checker. Although not standardised, this utility is present on most UNIX systems.
Groff: The GNU re-implementation of ditroff, thus providing troff and nroff utilities. Non-standard. Available under the GPL at www.gnu.org/s/groff.
Ispell: A re-write of spell for international dictionaries. Non-standard. Available at lasr.cs.ucla.edu/geoff/ispell.html under its own license.
Ls: List the contents of a file-system directory. This utility is standardised by POSIX.1-2008.
Make: A build system that uses a graph of dependencies (by a file's last modified date) to determine when a target needs to be rebuilt. This utility is standardised by POSIX.1-2008 and was first released in Version 7 AT&T UNIX. It has two somewhat incompatible implementations, as the standardised syntax is fairly limited: under the GPL at www.gnu.org/software/make, referred to as GNU make; or distributed with BSD UNIX systems as BSD make.
Man: A POSIX.1-2008 standardised utility for viewing UNIX manpages. The standard document only specifies that it accepts a name and returns output: no more. man usually looks up the manual to display in a set of directories reserved for manuals, then either pages pre-formatted manuals to the screen (cat pages) or formats it on the spot with nroff or mandoc.
Mandoc: A specialised formatter for UNIX manuals designed to replace groff for UNIX manual input. Non-standard. ISC licensed. Available at mdocml.bsd.lv.
Nroff: A re-write of the original formatter for the roff language (the name deriving from new roff). Built to accomodate for terminals. Modern uses of this utility are actually through a re-write, ditroff.
Restore: The dual to dump: restores a dumped file-system. This utility is not standardised, but found on most UNIX operating systems anyway.
Sccs: Historically the dominant revision control system for UNIX systems, and standardised by POSIX.1-2008. Despite being standardised, few UNIX systems include this utility. It has largely been replaced by cvs.
Spell: The original (English-only) UNIX spell-checker distributed with Version 6 AT&T UNIX. Non-standard. BSD licensed and available at code.google.com/p/unix-spell. Also may be emulated by ispell and aspell.
Tail: A standard POSIX.1-2008 utility for outputting parts of a file.
Troff: Traditional name of a formatter for the roff langage. First released in Version 6 AT&T UNIX as a printer and graphical-device version of nroff (the name deriving from typesetter roff). Modern uses of this utility are actually through a re-write, ditroff.
Vi: Extends ed to operate in fully visual (screen) mode, extending ex in its display handling capability. This utility is standardised by POSIX.1-2008. It first appeared in Version 8 AT&T UNIX.
Vim: A popular implementation of the vi editor. It is distributed under a custom GPL-like license at www.vim.org.

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