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Shell Command Explainer

Paste any shell command to see a clear breakdown of each part — the command, flags, arguments, and operators — with tldr-style descriptions.

Command

Examples:

How It Works

This tool parses a shell command and identifies each component:

  • Command — the program being executed (e.g., ls, git, find)
  • Flags / Options — switches that modify behavior, starting with - or --
  • Arguments — values passed to the command or its flags (file paths, patterns, etc.)
  • Operators — shell operators like | (pipe), > (redirect), && (and), ; (sequence)

Descriptions are provided from a built-in knowledge base covering common Unix commands and their flags. All processing happens locally in your browser — no data is sent to any server.

Shell Syntax Reference
Syntax Meaning Example
-x Short flag (single character) ls -l
--word Long flag (full word) grep --count
-abc Combined short flags (-a -b -c) tar -xzf
| Pipe output to next command cat file | sort
> / >> Redirect / append output to file echo hi > file.txt
< Redirect file as input sort < data.txt
&& Run next command if previous succeeds make && make install
|| Run next command if previous fails test -f x || echo missing
; Run next command regardless echo a; echo b

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