How to change directory at the end of a bash script?

Question

In my .bashrc:

function rnew { $HOME/.dotfiles/railsnewapp.sh $1; }

Essentially, I call rnew from any directory, and it creates a directory in ~/code/appname, installs Rails into it, and then I want the pwd to become ~/code/appname.

In ~/.dotfiles/railsnewapp.sh:

#! /bin/bash
appname=$1
appdirectory="$HOME/code/$appname"
if [ -d $appdirectory ]; then
  echo $appdirectory already exists. Not creating Rails app $appname.
else
  mkdir $appdirectory
  cd $appdirectory
  if [ `pwd` == $appdirectory ]; then
    echo "rvm use 1.8.7@$appname" >> "$appdirectory/.rvmrc"
    rvm gemset create $appname
    cd ..
    rails new $appname -m $HOME/code/config/base_template.rb -T -J
    cd $appdirectory
    if [ `pwd` == $appdirectory ]; then
      git init .
    else
      echo Could not create git repo in $appdirectory. Could not switch to that directory.
    fi

  else
    echo Could not switch to directory $appdirectory. No creating Rails app $appname.
  fi
fi

######## how to switch to $appdirectory here so that 
######## when the `rnew` function completes and I'm back at the
######## terminal and the `pwd` is $appdirectory?

Ps. I do not want to do a cd in rnew. As you can see in the script, I am making sure that the app is created in the correct directory and other checks related to directory, so I don't think I can call the script from rnew for a directory that is yet to be created?

Answer 1

You need to make sure that the directory change happens in the current shell by sourcing it (notice the . before $HOME):

function rnew { . $HOME/.dotfiles/railsnewapp.sh $1; }

It's a shell built-in, from help .:

.: . filename [arguments]
    Execute commands from a file in the current shell.

    Read and execute commands from FILENAME in the current shell.  The
    entries in $PATH are used to find the directory containing FILENAME.
    If any ARGUMENTS are supplied, they become the positional parameters
    when FILENAME is executed.

    Exit Status:
    Returns the status of the last command executed in FILENAME; fails if
    FILENAME cannot be read.

Note that this makes the railsnewapp.sh script be executed in the current shell, variables defined in the shellscript will be available to the shell when it's finished.

Answer 2

Another option: have your script print the directory name at the end of the script.

...
echo "$appdirectory"
exit

For any error conditions, print the error message to stderr (echo something >&2) and exit with a non-zero return code (exit 1). This is good practice anyway.

Then the function can look like:

rnew () { 
    local dir=$( $HOME/.dotfiles/railsnewapp.sh "$1" )
    [[ $? -eq 0 ]] && cd "$dir" 
}

Answer 3

Why not just do it all in that function? Something like:

rnew() {
    local appdir="$HOME/code/$1"
    mkdir "$appdir" || return
    echo "rvm use 1.8.7@$1" > "$appdir/.rvmrc"
    (cd "$appdir" && rvm gemset create "$1") || return
    rails new "$1" -m "$HOME/code/config/base_template.rb" -T -J || return
    cd "$appdir" && git init .
}