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J. Doe
Asked: 2017-07-13 14:07:02 +0800 CST

Easiest way to shorten directory?

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I am aware this may be a duplicate, and if so, I will delete it.

What is the easiest way to navigate to a deep directory without having to type the directory every time. I do a lot of stuff in the same folders but every time I open a new terminal, I have to navigate to the directory again.

So far, I have been using variables in .bashrc, but is there an easier way than

cd $data

to get somewhere? For example, if I want to just be able to type "data" and be navigated to one of my data folders, how do I go about that?

command-line

3 Answers

  1. Just make an alias for the respective command in ~/.bashrc.

    alias data='cd /home/User/some_folder/another_folder/data/'

    And run source ~/.bashrc. After that you can just type data in terminal and it will take you there

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  2. My first thought was what Sergiy posted, but an alternative is to create a symbolic link in your home directory:

    ln -s data /long/path/to/deep/directory/data

    Now you can just cd data ( from your home directory, otherwise it's cd ~/data ) when you want to get there. This has the added advantage that if you open nautilus and want to go there graphically you can also just click on the data link in your home directory.

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  3. Use cdable_vars:

    $ data=/tmp
$ shopt -s cdable_vars
$ cd data
/tmp

    Or autocd

    $ shopt -s autocd
$ $data
cd -- /tmp

    From the 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.

    cdable_vars
    If this is set, an argument to the cd builtin command that is not a directory is assumed to be the name of a variable whose value is the directory to change to.

    It would have been brilliant if we could combine the two, but the two seem to be mutually exclusive in scope.

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