changing directories and opening files

Question

For an example, I am in the directory Desktop. I then do cd break and when I list all files in break, i have for example main.cpp file. I am trying to be able to go straight from Desktop to opening up main.cpp using sublime text(using subl to open it) without getting to break then doing subl main.cpp but can't seem to figure it out. This is what I want to do:

/Desktop $ cd break/subl main.cpp

but obviously that won't work. How do I do this and combine everything into one command?

Answer 1

To open a file with a specific program in a directory other than the current working directory, put the command you use to open the file first, then the path to the file. In your case:

subl break/main.cpp

You can also use an absolute path, which will work regardless of the current working directory

subl ~/Desktop/break/main.cpp

You can use wildcards in the path. For example I have a file in

/home/zanna/Dropbox/Writings/journal02/Capoeira

I open it like this

vim ~/Dr*/Wr*/j*2/Cap*

If you often open a specific file with a particular program you could make an alias to open it

alias capedit='vim ~/Dropbox/Writings/journal02/Capoeira'

As @Serg suggested you can also make a symlink to a file buried deep in a directory tree to make it more accessible

ln -s ~/Dropbox/Writings/journal02/Capoeira ~/new-writing/Capoeira

Now I can just

vim ~/new-writing/Capoeira