How do I use cd such that when I type 'cd wo' and there is only one directory starting with 'wo' (say, 'work'), that cd cd's into work? I think I remember doing this and I did not make a custom alias.
In Bash, pressing the "tab" key will autocomplete paths and directories.
So cd wo[tab] becomes cd work.
More on other forms of Bash autocompletion here.
You're probably looking for bash-completion.
Related
Is it possible in bash to automatically cd into a directory even without typing cd?
E.g., I'd like to be able to cd into ./whatever when just typing the following into the terminal:
./whatever
Is there a way to achieve this with bash? I know that zsh supports this.
One of my thoughts was to catch the Is a directory error thrown by bash when just typing ./whatever and subsequently cd into that directory but I couldn't find out a way to do it.
Yes, just enable the shell option autocd:
shopt -s autocd
From the Bash Reference Manual:
autocd
If set, a command name that is the name of a directory is executed as if it were the argument to the cd command. This option is only used by interactive shells.
I know that cd ~- changes directory to $OLDPWD.
I'm using GNU bash, version 4.4.23(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin17.5.0) on a Macbook.
'cd --' appears to have the same behavior as 'cd ~-'.
Why?
With Bash -- is used to specify the end of a command options.
So cd -- means cd.
cd without argument change your current directory to your home directory (like cd ~).
The fact it leads you to your last PWD is a coincidence.
That's not correct. cd -- changes to your home directory, just like cd only. Consider cd -- a pure cd with no options and no parameters given. See also https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/11382.
I often find myself typing cd.. (which results in -bash: cd“: command not found) in stead of cd ..
So would like to add an alias for this in my .bashrc or better yet, I would like an alias for .. to mean cd ..
I can't get it to work however; I tried several options:
alias ..=cd .. results in alias ..='cd'
alias ..='cd ..' results in alias ..=''cd'
Also escaping the dots in various ways doesn't work:
alias ..=cd \.\. results in alias ..='cd'
alias ..=cd '\.\.' results in alias ..='cd'
What is correct way to do this right?
This works for me on linux (Ubuntu 16.04) with bash v4.3.46. I believe it won't be any different for macOS.
alias '..'='cd ..'
I assume that you are interested in solutions working for bash.
If you want to solve this with an alias, you have to use a name which starts with a letter, for instance
alias up='cd ..'
Maybe more interesting for you would perhaps a general solution, where typing any directory name would cd to this directory. You can do it by placing into your .bashrc the command
shopt -s autocd
After this, .. would bring you one directory up, ~ would bring you to your home direcory and aunt/bertie would cd you right to your aunt.
Currently, to get to the directory I need to type this:
cd /cygdrive/c/Users/NameOfUser/FolderBelongingToUser
Is there a way to make it so that I can just type something like:
cd FolderBelongingToUser ?
I'm familiar with z (uses ranking) and cdargs (uses shortcuts) but there are many other tools designed to make navigation in your shell easier and built-in solutions like CDPATH or the ** wildcard…
CDPATH
Adding something like this in your *rc file:
export CDPATH='.:~:/cygdrive/c/Users/NameOfUser/'
allows you to do exactly what you are after:
$ cd FolderBelongingToUser
or, better:
$ cd Fold<Tab>
**
If your bash is recent enough, you can do something like this:
$ cd **/foo
If you're using OSX you can open the hidden file named .bash_profile in your root user directory and add an entry like this:
alias define_your_shortcut='define your path'
You can do this for anything. For example here is an alias for your example:
alias FolderBelongingToUser='cd /cygdrive/c/Users/NameOfUser/FolderBelongingToUser'
Here's another example using a command to toggle hidden files
alias showfiles='defaults write com.apple.finder ShowAllFiles TRUE'
alias hidefiles='defaults write com.apple.finder ShowAllFiles FALSE'
After you make any changes to your bash_profile you'll need to either logout and login or you can open terminal and tell it to reload your bash_profile with this command
source ~/.bash_profile
I'm not personally familiar with Windows but if your using Windows a quick search result explained that this is how you would create a command prompt alias in Windows
AddConsoleAlias( TEXT("test"),
TEXT("cd \\<a_very_long_path>\\test"),
TEXT("cmd.exe"));
Alternatively it looks like someone provided a good answer to doing this in Windows here: https://superuser.com/questions/560519/how-to-set-an-alias-in-windows-command-line
Vim normally supports tab completion, so you can probably type something like
cd ~NamTabFolTab
which will expand to
cd /cygdrive/c/Users/NameOfUser/FolderBelongingToUser
Of course, if NameOfUser is you, then you can probably just type
cd ~/FolTab
You can add the following line to your .vimrc
cabbr FolderBelongingToUser /cygdrive/c/Users/NameOfUser/FolderBelongingToUser
Then you can can
cd FolderBelongingToUser
If you want to add more to the path (eg to specify a filename with :w) you can press / after FolderBelongingToUser and it will replace it with the full path and allow you to continue typing.
:ca[bbrev] is a Command line only abbreviation. See: :help :cabbr
If this is a permanent alias, then in your ~/.bashrc, create an alias:
alias FTBU='/cygdrive/c/Users/NameOfUser/FolderBelongingToUser'
You will then be able to access it in your shell by:
$ cd FTBU
As another trick, if you are only going to use the alias to change to the directory then simply add cd to the alias
alias FTBU='cd /cygdrive/c/Users/NameOfUser/FolderBelongingToUser'
You then need only type:
$ FTBU
to change to the /cygdrive/c/Users/NameOfUser/FolderBelongingToUser directory. However, if you plan to use the alias for any other purpose, leave the cd out of the alias definition.
If this is a temporary alias, you can simply create an alias from the command line with:
$ alias FTBU='/cygdrive/c/Users/NameOfUser/FolderBelongingToUser'
with the same results. (substitute anything you like for FTBU) Note: you remove an alias with the unalias command. Also Note: you should to check whether an existing system command exists with the name of your alias before assigning it. Simply type the proposed alias at the command line. If you receive something line bash: your_alias: Command Not Found, then you are good to go. There is no minimum number of characters required in an alias. So it you want to use a single-character, that's fine.
Is there a zsh script that would allow me to auto complete spaces with backslashes?
For example:
assume there is a folder called "My folder" with a space in between.
If I want to get inside, I
cd My\ folder
However, I want a way to type
cd My folder
and zsh will automatically know to put a backslash so I don't have to.
A little late on the answer, but this should allow you to do what it is you're looking to do as well as retain the normal behavior for the cd command and also take you to your ~ directory if no directory is given.
Add to your ~/.zshrc file:
function cd() {
new_directory="$*";
if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
new_directory=${HOME};
fi;
builtin cd "${new_directory}"
}
However your ZSH should have autocompletion built in, in which case you can enter the first few letters of the directory that you're trying to cd into, then hit tab and it should complete the directory name or give a list of directories if more than one matches.
You could Make an alias with "Myfolder" and run that in a zsh script.
alias -g "Myfolder"="My\ folder" ---> cd Myfolder
I don't know if there is a way to make it possible with having the space in between the words. If it has to be my "My folder" then I don't know that I can help you.