I am writing a .sh to do some work for me, but I am now at the point where I have to cd to the directory the file /path/to/file.end is in. terminal doesn't allow
cd /path/to/file.end
bash: cd: /path/to/file.end: Not a directory
there is sadly no workaround I know of, so it would be nice if you could help!
Type cd $( dirname /path/to/file.end). That will take you into /path/to.
Explanation:
dirname returns the complete path for a file (without the filename, which you would get with basename) - i.e. dirname /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99update-notifier returns /etc/apt/apt.conf.d$(anything) is replaced by the result of the command in the parentheses. So cd $( dirname /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99update-notifier) is executed as cd /etc/apt/apt.conf.dAnother (but old and discouraged) notation for the same was
cd `dirname /path/to/file.end`
You can not cd into a file. Here is a (command line) function that will automatically cd into a path for a given fully qualified file path:
function fcd () { [ -f "$1" ] && { cd "$(dirname "$1")"; } || { cd "$1"; } ; pwd; }
pwd, and if you're defining a function in one line, need a semicolon after pwd.
Jul 5, 2013 at 10:36
echo $? -- what is the exit status?
Jul 5, 2013 at 11:07
If you append "/.." to the filename that will take you to the correct directory e.g. cd /path/to/file.end/... It works on Cygwin anyway.
touch test && cd /home/test/test/.. says bash: cd: /home/test/test/..: No such file or directory
Use:
cd $(dirname $(realpath <path>/myfile.txt))
It unfolds the path of file.
cd /path/to? That will change the directory to the directory that the filefile.endis in.shopt -s autocd(default on zsh) to your~/.bashrc, Allows you to cd into directory merely by typing the directory name. More:man bash | grep "autocd"