How to make an "alias" for a long path?

Question

I tried to make an "alias" for a path that I use often while shell scripting. I tried something, but it failed:

myFold="~/Files/Scripts/Main"
cd myFold

bash: cd: myFold: No such file or directory

How do I make it work ?
However, cd ~/Files/Scripts/Mainworks.

Solution 1

Since it's an environment variable (alias has a different definition in bash), you need to evaluate it with something like:

cd "${myFold}"

or:

cp "${myFold}/someFile" /somewhere/else

But I actually find it easier, if you just want the ease of switching into that directory, to create a real alias (in one of the bash startup files like .bashrc), so I can save keystrokes:

alias myfold='cd ~/Files/Scripts/Main'

Then you can just use (without the cd):

myfold

To get rid of the definition, you use unalias. The following transcript shows all of these in action:

pax> cd ; pwd ; ls -ald footy
/home/pax
drwxr-xr-x 2 pax pax 4096 Jul 28 11:00 footy

pax> footydir=/home/pax/footy ; cd "$footydir" ; pwd
/home/pax/footy

pax> cd ; pwd
/home/pax

pax> alias footy='cd /home/pax/footy' ; footy ; pwd
/home/pax/footy

pax> unalias footy ; footy
bash: footy: command not found

Solution 2

There is a shell option cdable_vars:

cdable_vars
If this is set, an argument to the cd builtin command that is not a directory is assumed to be the name of a variable whose value is the directory to change to.

You could add this to your .bashrc:

shopt -s cdable_vars
export myFold=$HOME/Files/Scripts/Main

Notice that I've replaced the tilde with $HOME; quotes prevent tilde expansion and Bash would complain that there is no directory ~/Files/Scripts/Main.

Now you can use this as follows:

cd myFold

No $ required. That's the whole point, actually – as shown in other answers, cd "$myFold" works without the shell option. cd myFold also works if the path in myFold contains spaces, no quoting required.

This usually even works with tab autocompletion as the _cd function in bash_completion checks if cdable_vars is set – but not every implementation does it in the same manner, so you might have to source bash_completion again in your .bashrc (or edit /etc/profile to set the shell option).

---

Other shells have similar options, for example Zsh (cdablevars).

Solution 3

Maybe it's better to use links

Soft Link

Symbolic or soft link (files or directories, more flexible and self documenting)

#      Source                            Link
ln -s /home/jake/doc/test/2000/something /home/jake/xxx

Hard Link

Hard link (files only, less flexible and not self documenting)

#    Source                            Link
ln /home/jake/doc/test/2000/something /home/jake/xxx

How to create a link to a directory

Hint: If you need not to see the link in your home you can start it with a dot . ; then it will be hidden by default then you can access it like

cd ~/.myHiddelLongDirLink

Solution 4

First off, you need to remove the quotes:

bashboy@host:~$ myFolder=~/Files/Scripts/Main

The quotes prevent the shell from expanding the tilde to its special meaning of being your $HOME directory.

You could then use $myFolder an environment a shell variable:

bashboy@host:~$ cd $myFolder
bashboy@host:~/Files/Scripts/Main$

To make an alias, you need to define the alias:

alias myfolder="cd $myFolder"

You can then treat this sort of like a command:

bashboy@host:~$ myFolder
bashboy@host:~/Files/Scripts/Main$

Solution 5

You can add any paths you want to the hashtable of your bash:

hash -d <CustomName>=<RealPath>

Now you will be able to cd ~<CustomName>. To make it permanent add it to your bashrc script.

Notice that this hashtable is meant to provide a cache for bash not to need to search for content everytime a command is executed, therefore this table will be cleared on events that invalidate the cache, e.g. modifying $PATH.

View more solutions

Comments

[nsrCodes]

I made a simple CLI for the same and it is proving to be very useful in overcoming this. Hope it helps you too :) github.com/nsrCodes/cdd

[bashboy]

Thanks. That works. I tried only alias myfold='~/some/path' and cd myfold. I get an error - no such directory. Why ? Also, is it possible to "un-assign" an alias variable ?

[bashboy]

myfold='~/some/path' cd "$myfold" Fails. Why ?

[paxdiablo]

@bashboy, probably because you have no directory with that name. ~/some/path was an example, you should substitute the actual path you want to use. I'll change it to use your example directory so it's clearer. As to how to unassign an alias, you use the unalias command. I've also updated the answer with a transcript, including the use of that command.

[Keith Thompson]

It's not actually an environment variable unless you export it.

[David W.]

@KeithThompson Okay, it's just a shell variable. But, you don't want to export it because you don't want it to possibly affect child processes. You define it this way it in your .bashrc or whatever resource file you use, and it will be defined in the immediate shell, but not in shell scripts.

[goldisfine]

How would you preserve this alias in different terminal sessions? When I open up a new tab and try to use this alias, it doesn't work.

[paxdiablo]

@goldisfine, see my parenthetical in one of the bash startup files like .bashrc. Putting the alias into a suitable startup file will ensure it's available for all sessions.

[Vassilis]

I prefer this solutions because it works with auto completition

[Will]

I don't think this answers the question; it's specific only to cd. What if the user wants to do mv sourcedir/filename reallylongpath ?

[paxdiablo]

@Will, I think you'll find that's covered by the very first paragraph. I'll clarify.

[User5910]

One downside: If you cd myFold then pwd, it will show you're in myFold. This is a deal breaker for me because relative commands with p4 source control depend on the current directory.

[dvj]

@User5910 - use pwd -P

[Ryan Stull]

Is there an equivalent of this for ZSH?

[Benjamin W.]

@RyanStull setopt cdablevars looks like it might be, but I don't know zsh at all.

[Benjamin W.]

@JohnMee I'll roll your edit back, as a) the option is called differently in zsh (no underscore) b) the question tagged just Bash and c) I link to the Bash manual. I'll add a paragraph to mention the other shells, though.

[Benjamin W.]

@JohnMee And I can't find the option for csh or tcsh, what is it called?

[Lucas P.]

Such a great answer! Thank you very much for the cdable_vars

[Muhammad Yusuf]

But cdable_vars doesn't give me the ability to do other commands such that ls for example

[Benjamin W.]

@MuhammadYusuf How do you mean? What are you trying to do?

[Muhammad Yusuf]

@BenjaminW. I want to have an alias for a directory, so that I can cd, ls, mkdir, ... and all needed operations on a directoy but cdable_vars only gives me the ability to cd into the aliased directory

[Benjamin W.]

@MuhammadYusuf Yes, it's only aliasing for cd. I'm not sure if the kind of global alias you're looking for is possible in Bash.

[Dorin Brage]

I used to use alias such as alias project='cd /path/to/project' and you just gave me a much better solution, thanks!

[sergej]

I think it will only work in zsh but not in bash.

[John Stewart]

This is the best answer IMHO, but it's true it works in zsh only, at least on my Ubuntu system.

[Erik J.]

For permanently storing the aliases it's advisable to add them to ~/bash_aliases in stead of ~/bashrc. See askubuntu.com/a/5278/1045718

[paxdiablo]

@Erik, keep in mind that's a convention, not something that bash itself does. It will only work if a "real" bash startup script calls it.

[Benjamin W.]

@Vladislav Notice that that breaks the completion for cd provided by bash-completion, which uses the _cd function (complete -o nospace -F _cd cd). Adding -v to that (to complete on variables) works, but can have undesired side effects – for me, it shows my complete environment when I tab complete.

[Vladislav]

@BenjaminW., yes, you are right - I did not notice that it breaks regular autocompletion for cd command 🤦‍♂️.

[Benjamin W.]

@Vladislav You can still try complete -o nospace -F _cd -v cd if your environment doesn't contain too many variables.

[Vladislav]

@BenjaminW., unfortunately, it raises bash: completion: function '_cd' not found on Git for Windows. Maybe I have to declare this function in \Program Files\Git\mingw64\share\git\completion\git-completion.bash? There is an example of _cp in stackoverflow.com/q/26550327/155687

[Benjamin W.]

@Vladislav It's part of the bash-completion package, see here; if you don't have bash-completion, there is an example for cd completion in the Bash manual.