CLI: Creating and Navigating the Dirextory Stack

CLI = Command Line Interface (bash in this case)

Creating and Navigating the Directory Stack -------------------------------------------

All of you know about changing directories with 'cd'. Here's a much more effective way of negotiating the directory tree on your linux box.

Create and navigate a directory stack (dirs) with a function that calls pushd, and displays it with dirs.

Run these:

help pushd help dirs

To make this easy, put the following functions abd alias in your ~-.bashrc:

This one runs pushd and then ls -shF on the directory it takes you to. It supersedes your normal cd:

cd() { ls -shF }

This one makes using the directory stack (dirs) very easy. First hit "d" (see below) to bring up the directory stack, then enter "c" followed by a space, followed by the number of the dir you want to return to. (Read on, this will become clear.)

c () { eval cd +${1} }

alias d='dirs -v'

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Now have bash reread your ~-.bashrc with:

$ source ~-.bashrc # or '. ~-.bashrc' Same thing

Do:

d

Nothing there? That's because you haven't put any directories in the stack with the above function "cd" that calls the pushd command, which does a conventional cd and adds the new directory to the stack.

Try this, starting in your home directory, entering "d -c" first, to clear the stack:

cdetc cdbin cd cdusr

Now do

d

to display the directory stack. It will look like this:

0 usr 1 2 bin 3 etc 4 ~

That's your directory stack now. Suppose that you want to return tobin without typing 'cdbin and without losing track of where you've been? Do:

c 2

It doesn't seem like much with the above short stack, and short directory names and paths, but if you are 6 levels deep in a directory and you want to return to another directory you were at a while ago that is 5 levels deep in a different directory, and you can't quite remember where that file was, then it makes ALL the difference in the world.

Take the small amount of time it takes to set up and learn the above, and you will find yourself in much more control of your navigations around your directory tree. And you will begin to understand why the CLI makes the GUI look like the child's playpen it is.

AC

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