Defining aliases for a certain directory [duplicate]

Question

Is there a way to have an alias set for a particular directory and its subdirectories?

I know I can put it in my .bashrc file, but I would like it only for a certain directory.

Edit: what i mean is i'd like to run commands that are aliased inside of the directory

~$ foo
-bash: foo: command not found
~/project$ foo
Bar!

Answer 1

Edit: I have deleted an earlier answer that relied on autoloaded functions as local commands, but that also more-or-less re-invented the problem of having '.' in $PATH - one might run unexpected code.

Instead, here is a minimal version of a wrapper for 'cd' as several respondents have suggested which sources files only in specified directories. It does not handle pushd or popd, nor does it unset or unalias any defined commands after one moves to another directory - one could define a separate callable cleanup function for that.

cd ()
{
    command cd "$@" || return;
    local FRC=.functions.rc;
    case ${PWD:- $(pwd)} in
        /some/special/dir)
            [ -O "$FRC" ] && source "$FRC"
        ;;
    esac
}

Answer 2

I can suggest to use GNU Make utility with declaration of commands in Makefile in directory of interest (~/project). Then it is possible to get such functionality:

~$ foo
-bash: foo: command not found
~$ make foo
make: *** No rule to make target 'foo'.  Stop.
~/project$ make foo
Bar!

Makefile for this example:

.PHONY : foo
foo:
    @echo "Bar!"

This will work only in directory of interest, but not in subdirectories.

Answer 3

You could make cd, pushd and popd functions which call the builtins and then look at the CWD and use that to determine which aliases to add or remove:

function cd() {
    command cd "$@"
    blah blah blah...
}

Answer 4

The only way I can think of to do this is by hooking the call to cd (pushd, popd, etc) to run a custom function that inspects the (real) current working directory and adds or removes aliases (or functions) as necessary.

Answer 5

I'm working on a project that accomplishes just that. Check it out: localalias.

Here's a demo:

Answer 6

I believe what you're asking for is called bookmarking. The 2 approaches I've seen used for doing this are to either maintain a set of aliases or use a tool to "bookmark" some long directory path, and then use this tool to "jump" to a bookmarked directory.

Method #1 - Aliases

You can make aliases to these directories, and store them in your ~/.bashrc file. You can then just type things like this:

alias dir1="cd ~/path/to/some/deep/deep/dir1"
alias dir2="cd ~/path/to/some/deep/deep/dir2"

Now when you login, aliases such as these will just work from any shell that makes use of the ~/.bashrc file.

Method #2 - Directory Bookmarking Tools

Take a look at this Q & A titled: Quick directory navigation in the terminal. Tools such as autojump or xd - eXtra fast Directory changer, can be used as well to "bookmark" frequently used directories so that you can easily change to them without having to type long paths.

Context "sensitive" aliases

This would be something that's only available when you're in a specific directory. I'm not aware of any way to do something like this. You'd have to develop your own homegrown solution to facilitate something like this. A script would be the logical method for implementing something like this.

One approach would be to develop a script that checks to see what directory you're in prior to running. If it's not the designated directory, then it would simply exit out. Otherwise it would proceed. This could be implemented as a function in Bash as well.