climb up the directory tree faster

Question

if I'm in a very deep directory a/b/c/d/e/f/g/h/i/j and want to come back a/b/c, I have to use ../../../../../../../.

Is there command I can pass through a number, e.g. cd up 7, to speed this operation up?

Answer 1

Creating an alias would work as a temporary solution, however if you want something more permanent that doesn't confine you to your presets I suggest writing a function to do this and including it in your .bashrc file.

source

# Go up directory tree X number of directories
function up() {
        COUNTER="$@";
    # default $COUNTER to 1 if it isn't already set
if [[ -z $COUNTER ]]; then
    COUNTER=1
fi
# make sure $COUNTER is a number
if [ $COUNTER -eq $COUNTER 2> /dev/null ]; then
    nwd=`pwd` # Set new working directory (nwd) to current directory
    # Loop $nwd up directory tree one at a time
    until [[ $COUNTER -lt 1 ]]; do
        nwd=`dirname $nwd`
        let COUNTER-=1
    done
    cd $nwd # change directories to the new working directory
else
    # print usage and return error
    echo "usage: up [NUMBER]"
    return 1
fi
}

Answer 2

You can create aliases to do the work.

alias cd..2="cd ../.."
alias cd..3="cd ../../.."
alias cd..4="cd ../../../.."
alias cd..5="cd ../../../../.."

And then you can just type cd..5 to go up 5 levels.
To make those aliases available in future logins, you can add the above to the .bash_profile file in your home dir.

Answer 3

If you are toggling between 2 directories, you can use cd - to switch between both.

If you want to bookmark a few directories, that you would probably cd to often, use pushd and popd -> google for more information.

Or, if you know you have to cd to 7th grand parent very often, you could create an alias, like

alias cd7up='cd ../../../../../../../'

Answer 4

You could write a function like this:

up() {
    local path i
    for (( i=0; i < $1; i++ )); do
        path+=../
    done
    cd "$path"
}

Put that in your ~/.bashrc, then you can run e.g. up 7 to go up 7 directories. You could override cd to allow cd up 7 too, but just making a new command is shorter and less hassle.

Answer 5

Be concise.

alias c1='cd ../'
alias c2='c1; c1'
alias c3='c2; c1'
alias c4='c3; c1'
alias c5='c4; c1'