I often find myself doing commands like this
cd ../../../../../
Is there a shortcut I can use that will cd ../ n times?
-
Are absolute paths a permitted solution?– user535733Commented Jan 10, 2020 at 15:14
-
Expand dots to dot-dot component– user986805Commented Jan 10, 2020 at 18:03
-
7Does this answer your question? climb up the directory tree faster - personally I like geirha's answer the best.– wjandreaCommented Jan 11, 2020 at 2:07
-
1Or this one askubuntu.com/a/703701/295286 Pretty much all solutions revolve around the same idea– Sergiy KolodyazhnyyCommented Jan 13, 2020 at 7:57
-
1@wjandrea I voted to close but then retracted my vote since the linked question specifies [bash] while Zsh and csh solutions can be found on this page.– MelebiusCommented Jan 16, 2020 at 10:58
|
Show 2 more comments
9 Answers
No, there is no existing command for this, but it is trivial to write one. Add these lines to your ~/.bashrc file (thanks to D. Ben Knoble for pointing out that the variable should be local):
function ncd(){
local path=""
for ((i=1;i<=$1;i++)); do
path="../$path"
done
echo "Moving to $path" >&2
cd "$path"
}
Save the file, open a new terminal, and you can now move N directories up using ncd N. For example:
$ pwd
/home/terdon/dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4/dir5/dir6/dir7/dir8/dir9
$ ncd 5
Moving to ../../../../../
$ pwd
/home/terdon/dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4
$ ncd 2
Moving to ../../
$ pwd
/home/terdon/dir1/dir2
Coming from the Windows world, Alt + Up Arrow navigates to the parent directory
in Windows Explorer. So I made something like this in ~/.inputrc:
"\33\33[A": "cd ..\n"
then pressing Alt + Up Arrow moves to the parent directory in the terminal. You have to press multiple times of course to move higher, but I have found it to be very fast. Also you can change the shortcut to your liking.
-
1
-
This is wonderful. I had trouble getting the arrow keys to bind under Debian, so I used Alt-u instead:
"\eu": "cd ..\n".inputrc can be immediately reloaded with bind -f ~/.inputrc Commented Apr 7, 2022 at 18:51
You can easily create aliases or shell functions to perform the given task. I personally use these:
alias ..='cd ..'
alias ...='cd ../..'
alias ....='cd ../../..'
and so on, manually defined for up to many-many dots in my .bashrc.
A shell function could instead easily take a numeric parameter, and execute cd .. in a loop that many times.
Similar to @terdon's answer, with slightly more natural usage and output:
# go up
up() {
local count="${1:-1}"
local path=../
while (( --count > 0 )) ; do
path="$path"../
done
echo "cd -- $path"
cd -- "$path"
}
This defines a function up, which has the following properties:
up nwill go upndirectoriesupwill go up exactly one directory (i.e., the default fornis 1)- output mimics that when using
shopt -s autocd(hence the--, which are technically unnecessary) - as before,
OLDPWDis set correctly to the current value ofPWD, rather than one of the intermediate directories. This means thatup 5; cd -works as expected.
-
-
1I guess "torek" is me? :) Your addition of
localmakes a lot of sense, I should have thought of that myself! Then, you are defaulting tocd ../when no input is passed, which is also good, but you don't actually explain any of these benefits, so they aren't obvious to the novice. The--is pointless since you know the argument will always be a variation of../. And you could simplify towhile (( --count > 0 )) ; doto avoid the needless repetition of(( count-- )). But this is indeed a better version than mine, it's a shame you don't point out the benefits.– terdonCommented Jan 12, 2020 at 14:16 -
@terdon eek! Sorry I was thinking of torek, who i see in tag:git a lot. Updates coming eventually. Commented Jan 12, 2020 at 15:53
-
@rexkogitans what's confusing? I'd love to know to increase the readability. Commented Jan 12, 2020 at 16:47
-
I admit that a function should declare all variables as
local. My point in saying it's more confusing is - maybe subjective:foris more readable thanwhilewith a predecrement. Also, what does${1:-1}do? If i did not oversee something, that's the same as just$1. I would also quote everything, likepath="${path}../". Commented Jan 13, 2020 at 8:10
Using the printf hack:
function updir(){
cd $(printf '../%.0s' {1..$1})
}
E.G. updir 5 will move you up 5 directories.
-
2Yes, very clever ! The
0also can be dropped, soprintf '../%.s'works just as well Commented Jan 13, 2020 at 8:07
Another possibility to consider is physically sending the keys if you have xdotool:
xdotool type ../
Assign it to a keyboard hotkey through Keyboard -> Shortcuts dialog. Then you can press the hotkey a required number of times.
If you use zsh you can use repeat:
repeat 5 { cd ..}
-
1In [t]csh,
repeat 5 cd ..works. (I can’t figure out how to get it to work with braces.) Commented Jan 12, 2020 at 4:09
In Zsh, you can simply add a single dot per level, i.e.
cd ...equals tocd ../..andcd ......equals tocd ../../../../..
Unfortunately, this cannot be used together with other path components, i.e. commands like
cd ...../foo
don’t work.
See also more tips on the cd command in Zsh.
I have used this for years:
alias up=" cd .."
alias up2="cd ../.."
alias up3="cd ../../.."
alias up4="cd ../../../.."
alias up5="cd ../../../../.."
alias up6="cd ../../../../../.."
alias up7="cd ../../../../../../.."
alias up8="cd ../../../../../../../.."
alias up9="cd ../../../../../../../../.."
