Terminal: Jump to directory found with find

Question

This seems like an obvious question to me but I can't find the answer... Presume I want to find a certain txt-file in my project and in Terminal I type:

find -name test.txt

As result I might get something like:

./directory1/directory2/directory3/directory4/test.txt

How do I jump to directory4 without having to type the complete path?

Answer 1

I'd use bash's history support to do this. After any command, you can reference it again with !!:

[jk@pecola tmp]$ find . -name test.text
./directory1/directory2/directory3/test.text

To perform a ls -l on the output of the last command:

[jk@pecola tmp]$ ls -l $(!!)
ls -l $(find . -name test.text)
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jk jk 0 Jan 23 20:49 ./directory1/directory2/directory3/directory4/test.text

In this example, we use the $(...) syntax to use the output of the command as an argument to another command.

Because !! references the last command run, we now need to be more specific if we want to re-run the find command, since we've run ls since. We can use the !<match> syntax to re-run the last command that started with <match>

[jk@pecola tmp]$ dirname $(!find)
dirname $(find . -name test.text)
./directory1/directory2/directory3

[jk@pecola tmp]$ cd $(dirname $(!find))
cd $(dirname $(find . -name test.text))

[jk@pecola directory4]$ ls
test.text

I also find this handy for re-doing commands which you need sudo for:

[jk@pecola tmp]$ adduser newuser
adduser: Only root may add a user or group to the system.

[jk@pecola tmp]$ sudo !!
sudo adduser newuser

Answer 2

If the terminal session is within a GUI you can select text with your mouse (left button) and paste the whole text at the position of the text cursor by clicking the middle mouse button.