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wodow
Asked: 2013-05-05 03:01:21 +0800 CST

How to stop bare bash cd (change directory command) from changing the working directory to $HOME?

  • 772

I do this too often:

$ pwd
/a/long/long/way/from/anywhere
$ cd # oops - meant to tab-complete something
/home/$USER

Can cd defaulting to $HOME be disabled?

bash

3 Answers

  1. Two options I can think of:

    • you can write an alias to default cd without arguments to whatever you want. This is in the line of using utilities like cdargs or apparix. Personally, I have been using this cd replacement for quite a long time.

    • patch bash to behave differently (bash-4.2/builtins/cd.def). Not sure if changing this default breaks other things, though.

    
228   if (list == 0)
229     {
230       /* `cd' without arguments is equivalent to `cd $HOME' */
231       dirname = get_string_value ("HOME");
232
233       if (dirname == 0)
234   {
235     builtin_error (_("HOME not set"));
236     return (EXECUTION_FAILURE);
237   }
238       lflag = 0;
239     }
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  2. In bash, if you accidentally change to the wrong directory, you can go back to the previous directory with:

    cd $OLDPWD
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  3. This alias seems to do it:

    alias cd='HOME= cd'

    I don't think it has any dangerous side effects...

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