NAME
gio - GIO commandline tool SYNOPSIS gio help [COMMAND] gio version gio cat LOCATION... gio copy [OPTION...] SOURCE... DESTINATION gio info [OPTION...] LOCATION... gio list [OPTION...] [LOCATION...] gio mime MIMETYPE [HANDLER] gio mkdir [OPTION...] LOCATION... gio monitor [OPTION...] [LOCATION...] gio mount [OPTION...] [LOCATION...] gio move [OPTION...] SOURCE... DESTINATION gio open LOCATION... gio rename LOCATION NAME gio remove [OPTION...] LOCATION... gio save [OPTION...] DESTINATION gio set [OPTION...] LOCATION ATTRIBUTE VALUE... gio trash [OPTION...] [LOCATION...] gio tree [OPTION...] [LOCATION...] DESCRIPTION gio is a utility that makes many of the GIO features available from the commandline. In doing so, it provides commands that are similar to traditional utilities, but let you use GIO locations instead of local files: for example you can use something like smb://server/resource/file.txt as location. COMMANDS help [COMMAND] Displays a short synopsis of the available commands or provides detailed help on a specific command. version Prints the GLib version to which gio belongs. cat LOCATION... Concatenates the given files and prints them to the standard output. The cat command works just like the traditional cat utility. Note: just pipe through cat if you need its formatting options like
-n, -T or other. copy [OPTION...] SOURCE... DESTINATION Copies one or more files from SOURCE to DESTINATION. If more than one source is specified, the destination must be a directory. The copy command is similar to the traditional cp utility. Options
-T, no-target-directory Don't copy into DESTINATION even if it is a directory.
-p, progress Show progress.
-i, interactive Prompt for confirmation before overwriting files. preserve Preserve all attributes of copied files.
-b, backup Create backups of existing destination files.
-P, no-dereference Never follow symbolic links. info [OPTION...] LOCATION... Shows information about the given locations. The info command is similar to the traditional ls utility. Options
-w, query-writable List writable attributes.
-f, filesystem Show information about the filesystem that the given locations reside on.
-a attributes=ATTRIBUTES The attributes to get. Attributes can be specified with their GIO name, e.g. standard::icon, or just by namespace, e.g. unix, or by '*', which matches all attributes. Several attributes or groups of attributes can be specified, separated by comma. By default, all attributes are listed.
-n, nofollow-symlinks Don't follow symbolic links. list [OPTION...] [LOCATION...] Lists the contents of the given locations. If no location is given, the contents of the current directory are shown. The list command is similar to the traditional ls utility. Options
-a attributes=ATTRIBUTES The attributes to get. Attributes can be specified with their GIO name, e.g. standard::icon, or just by namespace, e.g. unix, or by '*', which matches all attributes. Several attributes or groups of attributes can be specified, separated by comma. By default, all attributes are listed.
-h, hidden Show hidden files.
-l, long Use a long listing format.
-n, nofollow-symlinks Don't follow symbolic links.
-u, print-uris Print full URIs. mime MIMETYPE [HANDLER] If no handler is given, the mime command lists the registered and recommended applications for the mimetype. If a handler is given, it is set as the default handler for the mimetype. Handlers must be specified by their desktop file name, including the extension. Example: org.gnome.gedit.desktop. mkdir [OPTION...] LOCATION... Creates directories. The mkdir command is similar to the traditional mkdir utility. Options
-p, parent Create parent directories when necessary. monitor [OPTION...] [LOCATION...] Monitors files or directories for changes, such as creation deletion, content and attribute changes, and mount and unmount operations affecting the monitored locations. The monitor command uses the GIO file monitoring APIs to do its job. GIO has different implementations for different platforms. The most common implementation on Linux uses inotify. Options
-d, dir=LOCATION Monitor the given location as a directory. Normally, the file type is used to determine whether to monitor a file or directory.
-f, file=LOCATION Monitor the given location as a file. Normally, the file type is used to determine whether to monitor a file or directory.
-D, direct=LOCATION Monitor the file directly. This allows to capture changes made via hardlinks.
-s, silent=LOCATION Monitor the file directly, but don't report changes.
-n, no-moves Report moves and renames as simple deleted/created events.
-m, mounts Watch for mount events. mount [OPTION...] [LOCATION...] Provides commandline access to various aspects of GIOs mounting functionality. Mounting refers to the traditional concept of arranging multiple file systems and devices in a single tree, rooted at /. Classical mounting happens in the kernel and is controlle by the mount utility. GIO expands this concept by introducing mount daemons that can make file systems available to GIO applications without kernel involvement. GIO mounts can require authentication, and the mount command may ask for user IDs, passwords, and so on, when required. Options
-m, mountable Mount as mountable.
-d, device=DEVICE Mount volume with device file.
-u, unmount Unmount the location.
-e, eject Eject the location.
-s, unmount-scheme=SCHEME Unmount all mounts with the given scheme.
-f, force Ignore outstanding file operations when unmounting or ejecting.
-a, anonymous Use an anonymous user when authenticating.
-l, list List all GIO mounts.
-o, monitor
Monitor mount-related events.
-i, detail Show extra information. move [OPTION...] SOURCE... DESTINATION Moves one or more files from SOURCE to DESTINATION. If more than one source is specified, the destination must be a directory. The move command is similar to the traditional mv utility. open LOCATION... Opens files with the default application that is registered to handle files of this type.
GIO obtains this information from the shared-mime-info database,
with per-user overrides stored in
$XDGDATAHOME/applications/mimeapps.list. The mime command can be used to change the default handler for a mimetype. rename LOCATION NAME Renames a file. The rename command is similar to the traditional rename utility. remove [OPTION...] LOCATION... Deletes each given file. This command removes files irreversibly. If you want a reversible way to remove files, see the trash command. Note that not all URI schemes that are supported by GIO may allow deletion of files. The remove command is similar to the traditional rm utility. Options
-f, force
Ignore non-existent and non-deletable files. save [OPTION...] DESTINATION Reads from standard input and saves the data to the given location. This is similar to just redirecting output to a file using traditional shell syntax, but the save command allows saving to location that GIO can write to. Options
-b, backup Backup existing destination files.
-c, create Only create the destination if it doesn't exist yet.
-a, append Append to the end of the file.
-p, private When creating, restrict access to the current user.
-u, unlink When replacing, replace as if the destination did not exist.
-v, print-etag Print the new etag in the end.
-e, etag=ETAG The etag of the file that is overwritten. set LOCATION ATTRIBUTE VALUE... Allows to set a file attribute on a file. File attributes can be specified with their GIO name, e.g standard::icon. Note that not all GIO file attributes are writable.
Use the query-writable option of the info command to list writable file attributes. If the TYPE is unset, VALUE does not have to be specified. If the type is stringv, multiple values can be given. Options
-t, type=TYPE Specifies the type of the attribute. Supported types are string, stringv, bytestring, boolean, uint32, int32, uint64, int64 and unset. If the type is not specified, string is assumed.
-n, nofollow-symlinks Don't follow symbolic links. trash [OPTION...] [LOCATION...] Sends files or directories to the "Trashcan". This can be a different folder depending on where the file is located, and not all file systems support this concept. In the common case that the file lives inside a users home directory, the trash folder is
$XDGDATAHOME/Trash. Note that moving files to the trash does not free up space on the file system until the "Trashcan" is emptied. If you are interested in deleting a file irreversibly, see the remove command. Inspecting and emptying the "Trashcan" is normally supported by graphical file managers such as nautilus, but you can also see the trash with the command: gio list trash://. Options
-f, force
Ignore non-existent and non-deletable files. empty Empty the trash. tree [OPTION...] [LOCATION...] Lists the contents of the given locations recursively, in a
tree-like format. If no location is given, it defaults to the current directory. The tree command is similar to the traditional tree utility. Options
-h, hidden Show hidden files.
-l, follow-symlinks Follow symbolic links. EXIT STATUS
On success 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise. SEE ALSO cat(1), cp(1), ls(1), mkdir(1), mv(1), rm(1), tree(1). GIO GIO(1)