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MEM
Asked: 2011-03-29 02:33:53 +0800 CST

What is the meaning of ~ in ~/somefolder?

  • 772

I've been told to go to ~/.ssh and, actually, I did cd ~/.ssh and I got into it.

However, I'm wondering: what does the ~ mean in this context?

folder

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    ~ = $HOME = your home directory

    The next commands will change to your home directory /home/david if your username is david:

    cd
cd ~
cd $HOME
cd /home/david
cd ~david
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  2. You can also use ~username (no slash) to have it lookup the home directory of a user; that is, ~khamer resolves to /home/khamer, whereas ~david would resolve to /home/david regardless of who is typing the command.

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  3. If you type:

    cd ~/

    and hit TAB, the command should change to the actual path to your home folder. As far as I know, this works with pretty much any command that takes a path as an argument.

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