Powerful CD Command Hacks

Chapter 1: Powerful CD Command Hacks:

 
cd is one of the most frequently used commands during a UNIX session. The 6 cd command hacks mentioned in this chapter will boost your productivity instantly and make it easier to navigate the directory structure from command line.
Hack 1. Use CDPATH to define the base directory for cd command
If you are frequently performing cd to subdirectories of a specific parent directory, you can set the CDPATH to the parent directory and perform cd to the subdirectories without giving the parent directory path as explained below.
[ramesh@dev-db ~]# pwd
/home/ramesh
[ramesh@dev-db ~]# cd mail
-bash: cd: mail: No such file or directory
[Note: This is looking for mail directory under current directory]
[ramesh@dev-db ~]# export CDPATH=/etc
[ramesh@dev-db ~]# cd mail
/etc/mail
[Note: This is looking for mail under /etc and not under current directory]
[ramesh@dev-db /etc/mail]# pwd
/etc/mail
To make this change permanent, add export CDPATH=/etc to your ~/.bash_profile
Similar to the PATH variable, you can add more than one directory entry in the CDPATH variable, separating them with : , as shown below.
export CDPATH=.:~:/etc:/var
This hack can be very helpful under the following situations:
o Oracle DBAs frequently working under $ORACLE_HOME, can set the CDPATH variable to the oracle home
o Unix sysadmins frequently working under /etc, can set the CDPATH variable to /etc
o Developers frequently working under project directory /home/projects, can set the CDPATH variable to /home/projects
o End-users frequently accessing the subdirectories under their home directory, can set the CDPATH variable to ~ (home directory)