To put it bluntly I'm looking for a sort of "help" option that will show me what I can possibly do with a command, right from the terminal window, kind of like Python's help().
A couple of questions:
1) Is there a way to see all the ls command options (or whatever they're called (see #3)) in the terminal window, that will show both the options and their descriptions? If so, how?
i.e. ls -la : list long format including hidden files
2) Is there an common option across every command to invoke that command's options and descriptions (i.e. ls -?)?
3) What are the letters or information followed by a dash called? -a, -b, -c etc. Are they options, commands, switches or something else? From my understanding ls is the command and "dash something" are options, but I've also seen the word switch thrown around and the entire string ls -a referred to as the command.
list --help(double dash). Those are options or switches. Switches is preferred for options without parameters.man ls. Arguments beginning with a dash are called options.--help. Linux distros normally use GNU versions oflsand other common utilities likesedfindetc.; other Unix systems usually do not but the GNU versions often can be added and sometimes are accessed withgnames likegfindgsedetc.manworks on most Unix systems, but some minimal configurations omit the man data.