For school, I have to switch between my top level directory which is git-basics-lab-online-web-sp-000 back to the sub directory I made which is called my-repository.
I was switching back and forth no problem using {cd} but when I tried to switch back to my-repository using
cd my-repository
my terminal is now saying
bash: cd: my-repository: No such file or directory
what did I do wrong?! How come it worked before but now it's giving me this message?
Perhaps we are missing more information. That is, if you moved correctly from one directory to another, there is no reason why it should disappear just like that.
Besides cd, there are other commands that will help you to know which directory you are in, and where you can go. I summarize them below:
Show the full path to the current directory:
pwd
List files and folders (except hidden ones):
ls
Enter the dir directory (assuming it exists where we are):
cd dir
Exit dir (see edit):
cd ..
Obviously each command has a number of options that increase its functionality. You can always access them with the man command (for example, man cd will show you the cd command help).
That is, once the terminal showed you the error you mention, you can run ls to verify, for example, if you typed the folder name wrong. Then you can also try pwd to confirm that you are where you think you are. And finally you can move with cd to where you think you are.
EDIT: As suggested by Roadowl, cd - and cd .. are not strictly the same thing (in the example I assume we go one directory at a time).
I will try to illustrate this with an example to show the difference.
Suppose we have the dirc folder inside dirb and this, in turn, inside dira ( dira/dirb/dirc ). Let us also suppose that we are in dira. To enter directly to dirc we would have to execute cd dirb/dirc. And this is where the difference is illustrated:
If we run cd .. we are going to be positioned in dirb.
If we run cd - we will go back to the dira directory we were in before running the command.
This error message simply means that the directory/file you specified could not be found at your current location. If you look to the left of where you are typing, your current directory should be displayed, something like /you/are/here/ >
You can type cd .. to navigate up one level (towards the root directory).
If you are sure the directory exists you are trying to cd into, then you probably just aren't currently in the right location, and you need to either cd .. or cd somewhereelse until you get there.
Related
Using VS Code terminal, a certain directory keeps popping up as default :
C:\Users\user\name\folder1\folder2\folder3\folder4
How do move back up with one single command instead of doing multiple "cd ../.."
Much appreciated!
Sorry I am answering for CMD as it was tagged CMD, I'm not sure how this affects VSCode. So, I'm not sure if I should just delete this or if it is actually relevant. Please let me know.
What folder do you want to go to?
Using your Example C:\Users\user\name\folder1\folder2\folder3\folder4
If you would like to go to the root CD \ will do.
If you would like to go up 4 directories CD ..\..\..\.. will do
If you want to go up 4 directories and back down 3 CD ..\..\..\..\folder1\folder2\folder3
If you want to always go to a specific directory on the current disk CD \Path\to\directory
If you want to always go to a specific folder on another disk CD /D DriveLetter:\Path\To\Folder (eg CD /D X:\Path\To\Folder)
In VScode, add the exact folder in Workspace, you want to open terminal from.
This might appear a noob question.
While working in bash, if we run cd ., it stays in the current folder.
I understand the functionality, however, I am not able to understand the rationale of this functionality?
What would be some practical ways to use this?
The primary use case I've seen for cd . is to test whether your file handle on the current directory is still valid.
If you're on a directory from a network share -- NFS, or the like -- it can be possible for directories to be remotely deleted, but for the local client to still believe they're accessible and in use.
cd . is a way to trigger an error if your handle on the current working directory is no longer valid.
This is the only "practical" case that came to my mind
$ cd .
cd: error retrieving current directory: getcwd: cannot access parent directories: No such file or directory
when your process has a current working directory referencing a directory that has been removed by another process.
That command has no functionality. But in a POSIX-compliant environment, if you add a -P option, then it has functionality: it resolves symlinks. So for example on a Mac, if you cd to a path with a symlink:
cd /System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versions/Current
...then do cd -P . ... you will point to:
/System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versions/C
. is a special file that represents the current directory.
There are plenty of things which make use of directories and it is sometimes useful to refer to the current directory.
Changing the directory to the current directory is not one of those.
A simple example where cd . fails:
mkdir my_error
cd my_error
rm -rf ../my_error
cd .
When the rm is embedded in a difficult script or can be done by some other cleanup process, is can be an useful check.
I use a build script which removes and recreates a directory.
The old directory disappears and new appears with new inode.
If, in one of my shells my $PWD is that reappeared directory and I notice
it became unusable (and I know it was recreated), I just
$ cd .
to get the (new) directory useable again and can continue my work there.
I cannot get CMD or powershell to access anything beyond the first sub directory on a drive without typing the full path. Keeps telling me the system cannot find the specified path.
i.e. This works:
d: cd \dev jobs
and this works:
d: cd \dev jobs\sites
but this doesn't work
d:\dev jobs> cd \sites
I'm running latest windows 10.
c: is my system drive
replicated this proess in the c drive directory and met with the same results
(Please, I'm not asking how to change directories but rather understand why the command line seems to be misbehaving)
Any ideas or suggestions on where to start?
Thank you for your help
Why the unuseful comment vote? That's the right answer.
If you are in d:\dev jobs and you cd sites, it will work. From d:\dev jobs, cd \sites does not work because it is looking for sites in the root folder (ie. d:\sites).
You want to use a relative path there.
Per the title, I'd like to have a .sh file which I can drop into a directory and then:
Run http-server (the simple node server) in the current directory
Open Chrome and point it to that server
The idea is that when I'm developing I can quickly run this bash file and see the current version of whatever html/css/javascript website I am working on. My issue is that if you run a command in a bash file, it isn't run in the current working directory, but rather in the root directory (as far as I can tell). So if I just write http-server in my file, it will run a server not in the current directory, but in ./.
To fix this, I want to cd to the directory first, and then run the script. current_dir=$(pwd) will give me something close to the current directory, but I can't put that directly into a cd command because it (1) doesn't have quotes around it, so spaces in directory names will make it not work, and (2) it starts with /C/ instead of /C:/. Can anyone advise me on how to fix this?
My current code looks as follows.
curr_dir=$(pwd)
cd $curr_dir
http-server
start chrome localhost/XXX
And, as mentioned, results in the http-server command being run in the wrong place:
Starting up http-server, serving ./
Available on:
http://192.168.56.1:8081
http://192.168.1.21:8081
http://127.0.0.1:8081
Hit CTRL-C to stop the server
e: For anyone who happens on this later, this isn't actually a problem -- see the accepted answer. I had another typo.
No; the commands you run always run in the current directory. Otherwise, if your hypothesis were correct, e.g. ls would always show the files in the root directory.
If you want to run a command which is in a different directory, you want
../relative/path/to/command
or
/absolute/path/to/command
Neither of these change the current directory of the shell. The current working directory of the process you create will remain the directory you were in when you run this command. (Even if you run it in the background and subsequently change to a different directory in your interactive shell, for example.)
If you want the command to run in the directory where the script lives on the disk, something like this can occasionally be useful.
cd "$(dirname "$0")"
but again, most of the time, you want and need your commands to run in the current directory.
(There are situations where you want a script to process data files in a fixed location, but these are rare exceptions. Until you have such a situation, consider it a bug to use cd in a shell script.)
If you have a command http-server somewhere on your PATH, just http-server will run that. You should normally not have the current directory on the PATH, but to run the binary in the current directory instead of from anywhere on the PATH, you say so:
./http-server
I am having an issue with the windows cmd line. When I cd into my Users dir my user folder shows as there but I cannot cd into. The path cd\Users\gmenfan83\ is my desired location. However, when I am in the Users dir and cd\Users\gmenfan83 \ I get a "The path is not found or specified" . I am more of a nix user but if the folder shows in the directory tree shouldn't I be able to cd into it? Thank you
Are you trying to use cd/Users/gmenfan83 while you have already used cd/Users? In that case you will not be able to find the file since you are already in the Users folder. Typing cd \Users\gmenfan83 right after opening cmd with C drive path should get you there.
It's unclear (even after your edit) what specifically you're doing, but this should get you started.
If you're currently in C:\users, and you want to change into the C:\Users\gmenfan83 folder, all you need is cd gmenfan83. If you're in C:\, all you need is cd users\gmenfan83.
Relative paths also work in Windows cmd.exe just as they do under *nix. To change from C:\users\gmenfan83\test to C:\users\gmenfan83\temp, you can use cd ..\temp, or specify cd \users\gmenfan83\temp.