Setting Your $CDPATH
Problem
You want to make it easier to switch between several directories in various locations.
Solution
Set your $CDPATH appropriately.
Your commonly used directories will likely be unique, so for a contrived
example, suppose you spend a lot of time working with
init’s rc directories:
/home/jp$ cd rc3.d bash: cd: rc3.d: No such file or directory /home/jp$ export CDPATH='.:/etc' /home/jp$ cd rc3.d /etc/rc3.d /etc/rc3.d$ cd rc5.d /etc/rc5.d /etc/rc5.d$ /etc/rc5.d$ cd games bash: cd: games: No such file or directory /etc/rc5.d$ export CDPATH='.:/etc:/usr' /etc/rc5.d$ cd games /usr/games /usr/games$
Discussion
According to the bash Reference, $CDPATH is “a colon-separated list of
directories used as a search path for the cd built-in command.” Think of it
as $PATH for cd.
It’s a little subtle, but can be very handy.
If the argument to cd begins with a slash,
$CDPATH will not be used. If $CDPATH is used, the absolute pathname to the
new directory is printed to STDOUT, as in the example above.
Warning
Watch out when running bash in POSIX mode (e.g., as /bin/sh or
with --posix). As the bash
Reference notes:
“If $CDPATH is set, the cd built-in will
not implicitly append the current directory to it. This means that
cd will fail if no valid directory name can be
constructed from any of the entries in $CDPATH, even if a directory with the same
name as the name given as an argument to cd
exists in the current directory.”
To avoid this, explicitly include . in $CDPATH. However, if you ...
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