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
         


        

Answer 1

First, you need the $ to access "myFold"'s value to make the code in the question work:

cd "$myFold"

---

To simplify this you create an alias in ~/.bashrc:

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

Don't forget to source the .bashrc once to make the alias become available in the current bash session:

source ~/.bashrc

Now you can change to the folder using:

cdmain

Answer 2

The preceding answers that I tried do not allow for automatic expansion (autocompletion) of subdirectories of the aliased directory.

However, if you push the directory that you want to alias onto the dirs stack...

$ pushd ~/my/aliased/dir

...you can then type dirs -v to see its numeric position in the stack:

 0  ~/my/aliased/dir
 1  ~/Downloads
 2  /media/usbdrive

and refer to it using that number for most if not all commands that expect a directory parameter:

 $ mv foo.txt ~0  

You can even use Tab to show the immediate subdirectories of the "aliased" directory:

 $ cd ~0/<Tab>
 child_dir1    child_dir2

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

Put the following line in your myscript

set myFold = '~/Files/Scripts/Main'

In the terminal use

source myscript
cd $myFold

Answer 5

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

Answer 6

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$