Users can leverage command line interface ( CLI ) for processing commands to a computer program, and viewing or managing files, in the form of text. Replies will be received in the same way.
A command line interface is significantly different to the graphical user interface (GUI) used in current operating systems, as it’s text-based.
How Does Command Line Interface Work?
As a way to interact with systems and programs, a command line interface is a popular, long-established approach. Users tend to find them helpful when completing certain tasks.
It’s a text-based interface, as opposed to the graphical user interface: a GUI allows users to interact with applications and operating systems via graphical options.
With a command line interface, users may work on tasks by inputting commands. Unfortunately, it’s not the most user-friendly option, despite the working mechanism being incredibly simple.
Users input a command, hit “Enger”, and await the response. The command line interface will process the command and present the result/output on the screen (using a command line interpreter).
Command line interface was initially released with the teletypewriter machine, which used batched processing. But today’s computers offer support for command line interface, GUI, and batch processing in a single interface instead.
Users committed to getting the most out of command line interface need to input numerous commands one at a time, and fast. A range of applications (mono-processing systems) continue to utilize command line interface for their operators.
Furthermore, certain programming languages (Python, BASIC, and Forth) offer a command line interface. Command line interpreter is essential for its implementation.
Command prompt is another key feature of command line interface. This is a character sequence used in the user interface or shell. Its purpose is to alert users when command line interface is prepared to take their commands. The best example of a command line interface is MS-DOS.