Multi-dot paths in zsh, like `cd …`

Question

All shells understand these commands:

$ cd .
$ cd ..

And zsh will also understand:

$ cd ...
$ cd ....

Provide

Answer 1

What I did to to deal with the same problem is to just let zsh fill in ../.. when I type ... and it makes sense to expand it in that way. It may suit you (or not :-P):

if is-at-least 5.0.0 && [[ ! $UID -eq 0 ]]; then                                                                                                                             
  ## http://www.zsh.org/mla/users/2010/msg00769.html                                                                                                                       
  function rationalise-dot() {                                                                                                                                             
    local MATCH # keep the regex match from leaking to the environment                                                                                                   
    if [[ $LBUFFER =~ '(^|/| |      |'$'\n''|\||;|&)\.\.$' && ! $LBUFFER = p4* ]]; then                                                                                  
        #if [[ ! $LBUFFER = p4* && $LBUFFER = *.. ]]; then                                                                                                               
        LBUFFER+=/..                                                                                                                                                     
    else                                                                                                                                                                 
        zle self-insert                                                                                                                                                  
    fi                                                                                                                                                                   
}                                                                                                                                                                        
zle -N rationalise-dot                                                                                                                                                   
bindkey . rationalise-dot                                                                                                                                                
bindkey -M isearch . self-insert                                                                                                                                         
fi

I also have an alias for ..., but it is not global.

Notice I check if the command line starts with p4 (the Perforce command line tool) and do not mess with it in that case, as Perforce arguments often involve literal .... If you do not use p4 you can obviously remove that check.