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NES
Asked: 2011-02-12 05:49:42 +0800 CST

Commandline shortcut for current directory similar to ~ for home directory?

  • 772

When i use the cp or move command in a terminal window, i'm currently with bash in a certain folder like this.

NES@server:~/Desktop/dir1$

And now i wanna copy a file from here ~/anotherdir/dir2 into the current chosen folder in bash (dir1) i would use the command

cp ~/anotherdir/dir2/file ~/Desktop/dir1

does a shortcut string exist to refer to the current chosen directory? So that in this example i don't have to provide the full path to the target dir, but the command knows it should use the current chosen directory in bash? i.e. as ~ stands for the home directory?

bash

8 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Your current directory is . . So, cp /foo/fam/foo . copies the file to your current directory.

    The analogous construction for "one directory up," or the parent directory of your current working directory, is two dots, i.e., .. . (Thanks @djeikyb .)

    So, from /usr/house/firstfloor/basement , cd .. takes you one level up to /usr/house/firstfloor.

    In the same example (starting from /usr/house/firstfloor/basement, the command cd ../.. would take you to /usr/house .

    You can also use $PWD with echo to get your current directory: 

    echo $PWD

    Incidentally, $OLDPWD will give you your previous directory. (Which in bash you can also reach by typing cd - .)

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  2. You can use $(pwd), it will resolve to the output from the pwd command.

    Example:

    echo $(pwd)
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  3. ./ represents the current directory. So you can use command cp ~/anotherdir/dir2/file ./ This will copy the file "file" into currect working directory.

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  4. To use the current directory as the destination directory use a single dot '.'

    Long Answer

    Using your example you would type: cp ~/anotherdir/dir2/file .

    To see the dot ., .. and ../../ directory names in action, copy and paste the following commands into your Terminal:

    mkdir a && mkdir a/b && mkdir a/b/c && mkdir a/b/c2
cd a/b/c
cp /etc/default/grub .
cp /etc/default/grub ..
cp /etc/default/grub ../c2
cd ../../
tree

    The output from tree command appears like this:

    .
└── b
    ├── c
    │   └── grub
    ├── c2
    │   └── grub
    └── grub

3 directories, 3 files

    The . at the top of tree output represents the new current directory a which is the grandparent of a/b/c which we navigated to using the cd ../../ command. Underneath a we see the sub-directories a/b, a/b/c and a/b/c2

    Line by line analysis

    First we created 4 directories on one line by using && to join multiple lines together.

    Then we changed to the directory a/b/c, which is the current directory for the following copy commands:

    • In the first copy command (cp) we set the destination to our current directory (c) with ..
    • In the second copy command we set the destination to the parent directory (b) with ...
    • In the third copy command we set the destination to the sibling directory (c2) with ../c2

    Then, as stated earlier, we changed the current directory to a and ran the tree command to display all directories and files under a.

    Cleanup

    After we are done, we remove the three directories and files with:

    cd ~/
rm -r tree
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  5. The environment variable for the current directory is $PWD

    echo $PWD
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  6. You can use the dot (.), the ~+ tilde expansion, the pwd command or the $PWD variable to represent the current working directory (CWD). All these commands can do that:

    1. mv file_old_dir .
    2. mv file_old_dir ~+
    3. mv file_old_dir $(pwd)
    4. mv file_old_dir $PWD
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  7. Yes (as others noted), current directory is ".", that's why you can start programs/script from the current directory with ./script (just script won't work unless . is not the part of PATH, which is not recommended though). Using $PWD or $(pwd) is a bit overkill, even if others mentioned that, using a single dot character is shorter, for sure :) ".." is the parent directory, for sure "/" is the root. Also nice to mention that "cd -" will put you in the previous directory where you were before you changed cwd (current working directory). It can be also useful in the daily work. A single "cd" command without any other in the command line will put you into "~" (your home).

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  8. cp ~/anotherdir/dir2/file `pwd`

    The back ticks mean to run the command that is between them and replace it all by the resulting output, in this case the working directory ("pwd" means "print working directory").
    Of course, I prefer the "." version. Added this one only for completeness.

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