How to change directory in a Shell Script?

Question

This is my first time I create a Shell Script.

At the moment I'm working with nodejs and I am trying to create a Shell Script and use git in it.

What my script looks like

#!/bin/bash
git clone git://github.com/Tmeister/Nodejs---Boilerplate.git site

This script is located at my desktop and it works (yes I have git installed).

What I want

After it downloaded the git repository, I want to:

cd /site
npm install

I have Nodejs and NPM installed.

What I tried

I just want to dive into the created folder and run the command npm install so I thought to do this:

#!/bin/bash
git clone git://github.com/Tmeister/Nodejs---Boilerplate.git site
echo "cd /site"
echo "npm install"

Also I've read about the alias and I tried

#!/bin/bash
git clone git://github.com/Tmeister/Nodejs---Boilerplate.git site
alias proj="cd /site"
proj
echo "npm install"

But nothing works..

Anyone who can help me?

Solution

It might be simpler than you think (since you are writing bash (or whatever shell you use) 'scripts' all time, just by using the command line):

#!/bin/bash
git clone git://github.com/Tmeister/Nodejs---Boilerplate.git site
cd site
npm install

cd - # back to the previous directory

To make it a bit more robust, only run npm if cd site succeeds (more on that in Chaining commands together):

git clone git://github.com/Tmeister/Nodejs---Boilerplate.git site
cd site && npm install && cd -

---

Just because I read some article about reliable bash, here's yet another version:

#!/bin/bash

OLDPWD=$(pwd)
git clone git://github.com/Tmeister/Nodejs---Boilerplate.git site \
    && cd site && npm install && cd "$OLDPWD"
function atexit() { cd "$OLDPWD"; }
trap atexit EXIT # go back to where we came from, however we exit

Comments

[Jens]

What is the point of cd'ing just before exit? What could be different if the script didn't?