Unix ABC

The ABC's of UNIX

A is for awk which runs like a snail, and

B is for biff which reads all your mail.

C is for cc as hackers recall, while

D is for dd the command that does all.

E is for emacs which rebinds your keys, and

F is for fsck which rebuilds your trees.

G is for grep a clever detective, while

H is for halt which may seem defective.

I is for indent which rarely amuses, and

J is for join which nobody uses.

K is for kill which makes you the boss, while

L is for lex which is missing from DOS.

M is for more from which less was begot, and

N is for nice which it really is not.

O is for od which prints out things nice, while

P is for passwd which reads in strings twice.

Q is for quota a Berkeley-type fable, and

R is for ranlib for sorting ar table.

S is for spell which attempts to belittle, while

T is for true which does very little.

U is for uniq which is used after sort, and

V is for vi which is hard to abort.

W is for whoami which tells you your name, while

X is, well, x of dubious fame.

Y is for yes which makes an impression, and

Z is for zcat which handles compression.