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bd

Description

Quickly go back to a specific parent directory in bash instead of typing "cd ../../.." redundantly.

Installation

For OS X/macOS

Using MacPorts:

sudo port install bd

For Debian/Ubuntu

Packages available here:

https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/bd

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bd

For Arch Linux

AUR packages available here:

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/bd

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/bd-git

For other OS

wget --no-check-certificate -O /usr/local/bin/bd https://raw.github.com/vigneshwaranr/bd/master/bd
chmod +rx /usr/local/bin/bd
echo 'alias bd=". bd -si"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

# If you need autocomplete support, follow these two steps
wget -O /etc/bash_completion.d/bd https://raw.github.com/vigneshwaranr/bd/master/bash_completion.d/bd
source /etc/bash_completion.d/bd

To enable case-sensitive directory name matching, use -s instead of -si in the alias.

How to use:

If you are in this path /home/user/project/src/org/main/site/utils/file/reader/whatever and you want to go to site directory quickly,

then just type: bd site

In fact, You can simply type <code>bd <starting few letters></code> like bd s or bd si

If there are more than one directories with same name up in the hierarchy, bd will take you to the closest. (Not considering the immediate parent.)

Other uses:

Using bd within backticks (<code>`bd <letter(s)>`</code>) prints out the path without changing the current directory.

You can take advantage of that by combining <code>`bd <letter(s)>`</code> with other commands such as ls, ln, echo, zip, tar etc..

Example:

  1. If you just want to list the contents of a parent directory, without going there, then you can use: <code>ls `bd p`</code> in the given example, it will list the contents of /home/user/project/

  2. If you want to execute a file somewhere in a parent directory, <code>`bd p`/build.sh</code> will execute /home/user/project/build.sh while not changing the current directory.

  3. If you reside in /home/user/project/src/org/main/site/utils/file/reader/whatever and want to change to /home/user/project/test, then try <code>cd `bd p`/test</code>

Screenshot: bd screenshot

Thanks:

See also: