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Improving the usefulness of pushd / popd / dirs troika in Unix filesystem navigation

Remember, there's a limited number of keystrokes in a lifetime - use them wisely.

Unix has a huge number of directories and no good way to navigate them. Famous cd command is too simplistic to help when you have over 10K directories in the directory tree.  the right way was actually invented in DOS with the advent of NCD and Orthodox managers but Unix is lagging behind and there although both orthodox manager and NCD clones re available they are not widely used.

But usually for a particular user on a particular server there is patterns of usage of this directory tree.  First of all some directories are used more often, some never at all.  Another common pattern is shuttling between two or three directories, repeatedly editing, compiling, running, archiving or deleting some files. This particular pattern of usage was noticed very early and pushd/popd/dirs troika is not very effective Bill Joy attempt to simplify and speed up filesystem navigation in C shell. The idea was brilliant but unfortunately nobody tried to improve the first bad implementation and eventually it became standardized (lemmings rules ;-).   But the fact that underling implementation if primitive does not mean that idea cannot be reused -- one definitely can adapt the initial (and brilliant) Bill Joe idea to modern capabilities of bash or ksh93 shells.   You should also look at NCD clones

pushd is essentially an elegant generalization of cd invented by Bill Joe and first implemented in C-shell: in addition to moving to a particular directory it stores the current directory in a directory stack (with optional suppression of duplicates).  Right now duplicate directories can be suppressed only in tcsh (with option set dunique.) It looks like in the current versions of bash the implementation of pushd/popd is very weak and not only does not support this option but contain some bugs that corrupt directory stack in certain circumstances. And without the suppression of duplicates the functionality of push/pop is much less usable (if at all)...

Pushd can also be used with -n argument to populate stack with the set of directories.  Bash also provides an environment variable called PROMPT_COMMAND. The contents of this variable are executed as a regular Bash command just before Bash displays a prompt.  This command can (and should) be used to maintain visited directories list.

Later on, popd can be used to restore to move to any of the directories in the stack. The weakness of implementation is that it always removes the directory from the stack. 

Usage of pushd/popd/dirs troika to enhance functionality of cd -

Often they are aliased to single symbols, for example

alias +='pushd .'
alias _='popd'

Paradoxically the ksh idiom cd - that permit toggling between two directories proved to be more useful for me then complex machinery of  push/popd/dirs (Entering cd - return you to the last directory we used; entering it a second time "toggles" us back again).  The key idea is to generalize it permitting  to do cd -- or cd ---  . The simplest way to implement cd -- and cd --- commands is by defining aliases cd-- and cd--- respectively (note that there should be no space in alias names, but that's not bad -- saves you one keystroke :-).

For example:

alias cd='pushd '
alias +='pushd'
alias _='popd'
alias cd-='popd'
alias cd--='popd -2'
alias cd---='popd -3'
alias d='dirs -v'
alias b='pushd +1'

The first  step is to redefine cd as pushd so that you do not need to type additional letters and change your navigation habits:

alias cd='pushd '

If you do like to see the list of directories in the stack you can also use

pushd()
{
    builtin pushd "$@" > /dev/null
}

alias cd-='popd'

alias cd--='popd -2'

alias cd---=popd -3'

Static set of directory favorites is probably the best way to use pushd/popd/dirs troika

One of the most productive ways of usage of pushd/popd/dirs troika is to to use it as a proxy to the directories favorite list.  To do this we need better  understand the capabilities of each of the commands  in pushd/popd/dirs troika

dirs

dirs [+N | -N] [-clvp]

Display the list of currently remembered directories. Directories are added to the list with the pushd command; the popd command removes directories from the list.

+N

Displays the Nth directory (counting from the left of the list printed by dirs when invoked without options), starting with zero.

-N

Displays the Nth directory (counting from the right of the list printed by dirs when invoked without options), starting with zero.

-c

Clears the directory stack by deleting all of the elements.

-l

Produces a longer listing; the default listing format uses a tilde to denote the home directory.

-p

Causes dirs to print the directory stack with one entry per line.

-v

Causes dirs to print the directory stack with one entry per line, prefixing each entry with its index in the stack.

popd

popd [+N | -N] [-n]

When no arguments are given, popd removes the top directory from the stack and performs a cd to the new top directory. The elements are numbered from 0 starting at the first directory listed with dirs; i.e., popd is equivalent to popd +0.

+N

Removes the Nth directory (counting from the left of the list printed by dirs), starting with zero.

-N

Removes the Nth directory (counting from the right of the list printed by dirs), starting with zero.

-n

Suppresses the normal change of directory when removing directories from the stack, so that only the stack is manipulated.

pushd

pushd [dir | +N | -N] [-n]

Save the current directory on the top of the directory stack and then cd to dir. With no arguments, pushd exchanges the top two directories.

+N

Brings the Nth directory (counting from the left of the list printed by dirs, starting with zero) to the top of the list by rotating the stack.

-N

Brings the Nth directory (counting from the right of the list printed by dirs, starting with zero) to the top of the list by rotating the stack.

-n

Suppresses the normal change of directory when adding directories to the stack, so that only the stack is manipulated.

dir

Makes the current working directory be the top of the stack, and then executes the equivalent of `cd dir'. cds to dir.

DIRSTACK

An array variable (see section Arrays) containing the current contents of the directory stack. Directories appear in the stack in the order they are displayed by the dirs builtin. Assigning to members of this array variable may be used to modify directories already in the stack, but the pushd and popd builtins must be used to add and remove directories. Assignment to this variable will not change the current directory. If DIRSTACK is unset, it loses its special properties, even if it is subsequently reset.

dirs command is very useful if we try to use pushd/popd as a favorites list. If nothing else it provides you with the list of favories: small but useful improvement over pitiful standard bash mode ;-).  To put directory into the stack you can use the ability to use pushd simply store directories using option -n.   Initial population of the list of favorites can be done in the .profile  from predefined list.  

After  populating the DIRSTACK you can use shortcuts to directories via cd ~1, cd ~2, ... notation.   For example if :
   dirs -v
       0  ~
       1  /var/log
       2  /usr/local
Then
      cd ~1  is equal to cd /var/log
and
      cd ~2  is equal to cd /usr/local

Notes

• In bash we cannot directly execute pushd command in the pipe as bash contain the bug -- the last stage of the pipe does not belongs to the current environment as in ksh.
• We can also prepend a set of valuable directories during .profile execution.

Automatic maintenance of directories favorites

The first successful implementation of the idea of reusable history of visited directories as a basis for advanced navigation was implmented in Xtree.  There are seleral good Xtree clones for Unix so one can try to use this concept. See for example UnixTree,

and Ytree

As they same on the webpage "Don't leave $HOME without it!"

Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov

Old News ;-)

bash Tricks From the Developers of the O'Reilly Network - O'Reilly ONLamp Blog

directory stack
Long ago having aliased "pu" and "po" to pushd and popd, I've moved on to showing my current directory stack with

alias d='dirs -v'

and rolling through the stack with

alias r='pushd +1'

and single numerical values aliased to go to that directory that comes from the dir listing, eg.

alias 3='pushd +3 > /dev/null ; dirs -v'

Another single letter alias I like is "p", which I have used for displaying and setting my PATH variable, but the code is lengthy so I won't burden you with how

p - 4
p --
p ++ /some/dir

does what you want.

[indiana-discuss] pushd-popd&co. in bash-ksh93 ... - was Re scope

Roland Mainz roland.mainz at nrubsig.org
Wed Sep 12 09:32:34 PDT 2007

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---

Hi!

----

[Sorry for the late reply, this one was apparently rotting in my
Drafts/-folder for a long time... ;-( ]

Tim Bray wrote:
> On Aug 8, 2007, at 10:56 AM, Richard Elling wrote:
> > pushd/popd and dirs came from csh.  They are invaluable when you only
> > had a terminal.  They are so invaluable that ksh code to implement
> > them
> > is on pp 244-247 of "The Kornshell Command and Programming
> > Language" by
> > Bolsky and Korn, ISBN 0-13-516972-0.
> 
> Right, well, I have a 24" screen with (at this moment in time) 3
> terminals active, all of which have several directories pushed.
> 
> I'm not religious about shells.  I am *passionate* that when we
> manage to get a Linux/OS-X user to try Indiana, they don't get rude
> shocks in the first three minutes because some basic piece of
> infrastructure that's wired into their muscle memory doesn't work.
> 
> If I get on Solaris and !! or !prefix-of-some-previous-command or
> pushd/popd doesn't work, *that's a bug*.  I don't want to micromanage
> how we fix it.   -Tim

Erm, technically the problem of "pushd/"popd" is that several shells
define "pushd" and "popd" with slightly different functionality/options
and there is no POSIX specification which could be used as guidance
(neither is it possible to just tack-on some functions to the shell
without checking whether this is allowed by the POSIX shell spec) ...

... but for interactive ksh93 sessions the solution is AFAIK quite easy:
ksh93 has a feature called "FPATH" which specifies a path (similar like
the "PATH" variable) from which shell functions can be loaded
dynamically at runtime. For ksh93 shipped with Solaris >= 11/B72 in
interactive mode this could be used to load the matching functions
"pushd"/"popd"/"dirs" from /usr/demo/ksh/fun/ via adding a
-- snip --
FPATH+="/usr/demo/ksh/fun/"
-- snip --
to /etc/ksh.kshrc

BTW: As a mid- or long-term project we'd like to add a larger shell
function library at the /usr/lib/shell/ksh/ directory (see CR 6601968
("RFE: Add /usr/lib/shell/ksh/ as a place to store loadable shell
functions")) which would move "pushd"/"popd"/"dirs" out of the demo
directory to something like /usr/lib/shell/ksh/org/opensolaris/dirutil/
, giving non-interactive shell scripts a permanent location they can
rely on.

----

Bye,
Roland

[Nov 26, 2007] bash Tricks From the Developers of the O'Reilly Network - O'Reilly ONLamp Blog

directory stack
Long ago having aliased "pu" and "po" to pushd and popd, I've moved on to showing my current directory stack with

alias d='dirs -v'

and rolling through the stack with

alias r='pushd +1'

and single numerical values aliased to go to that directory that comes from the dir listing, eg.

alias 3='pushd +3 > /dev/null ; dirs -v'

Another single letter alias I like is "p", which I have used for displaying and setting my PATH variable, but the code is lengthy so I won't burden you with how

p - 4
p --
p ++ /some/dir

does what you want.

Push'n'Pop - Bash macro to simulate Tcsh cd functionality

I really like the directory bookmark/browsing ability of tcsh when aliasing the pushd command to cd. Using bash, I would naturally like to have the same abilities, but this turns out to be far from obvious to achieve.

The following listing is of a tcsh session displaying the desired functionality:

$ cd dir3
$ dirs
 0  ~/tmp/dir1/dir2/dir3
 1  ~/tmp/dir1/dir2
 2  ~/tmp/dir1
 3  ~/tmp
$ cd +2
$ pwd
/home/user/tmp/dir1
$ dirs
 0  ~/tmp/dir1
 1  ~/tmp
 2  ~/tmp/dir1/dir2/dir3
 3  ~/tmp/dir1/dir2
$ 

To get the above behavior a few settings needs to be put into the ~/.tcshrc initializations file:

# .tcshrc

alias dirs 'dirs -vl'

set dunique
set pushdsilent 
set pushdtohome 
alias cd 'pushd \!*'

Things gets a little complicated when trying to mimic these tcsh settings in bash, because no counterparts exists. This does, of course, not mean that it is not possible, but is does mean that scripting is necessary:

# .bashrc

alias dirs='dirs -v'
cd() {
   MAX=10
   LEN=${#DIRSTACK[@]}

   if [ $# -eq 0 ] || [ "$1" = "-" ]; then
      builtin cd "$@"
      pushd -n $OLDPWD > /dev/null
   else
      pushd "$@" > /dev/null || return 1
   fi

   if [ $LEN -gt 1 ]; then
      for i in `seq 1 $LEN`; do
         eval p=~$i
         if [ "$p" = "$PWD" ]; then
            popd -n +$i > /dev/null
            break
         fi
      done
   fi

   if [ $LEN -ge $MAX ]; then
      popd -n -0 > /dev/null
   fi
}

When this function is put into the ~/.bashrc initialization file, the bash cd command behave exactly as it does in tcsh.

Re bash feature request pushd -v, popd -v

Dave Rutherford
Fri, 15 Jul 2005 21:22:51 -0700

On 7/15/05, Ben Horowitz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I grew to appreciate one feature of tcsh: the ability to use
> the commands pushd -v, and popd -v.
>
> As you know, when the bash pushd and popd commands are successful,
> they print the directory stack.  In tcsh, one can additionally issue
> the command pushd -v, which is like the bash commands pushd followed
> by dirs -v.  This feature appears not to be available in bash.
>
>   tcsh> pushd -v /tmp
>   0       /tmp
>   1       /

Does this do the trick?

pushd ()
{
    local verbose=0;
    if [ "$1" = "-v" ]; then
        verbose=1;
        shift;
    fi;
    builtin pushd "$@";
    if [ $verbose -eq 1 ]; then
        for w in $@;
        do
            echo "$w    ${DIRSTACK[$w]}";
        done;
    fi
}

Barely tested (and with bash 3.0 at that), but it seems to do
what you want.  popd would be very similar, of course.

Dave

===

Here's a first cut.  Salt to taste (yes, you should use getopts):

pushd()
{
        local es
        case "$1" in
        -v)     vflag=y; shift ;;
        esac

        builtin pushd "$@"
        es=$?
        [ -n "$vflag" ] && dirs -v
        return $es
}

-

Backtracking with bash

I was working with linux quite a bit today, and frequently changing between directories, when I wondered if there was a way to go back to the directory I was in previously.

Turns out there is a way:

 cd ~-

So if I was doing something like this:

[pete@bigred /]$ cd /etc
[pete@bigred etc]$ cd /usr/local
[pete@bigred local]$ cd ~-
[pete@bigred etc]$ pwd
/etc

If you want to create a command so you don't have to type ~- you can create an alias:

alias cdb='cd ~-'

This ~- thing works great if you only need to go back one directory, but what if you wanted to go back two directories. Continuing the last code sample:

[pete@bigred etc]$ cd ~-
[pete@bigred local]$ cd ~-
[pete@bigred etc]$ pwd
/etc

We are back to /etc and not / our starting point. What I want is something that keeps a history of the directories I've been to.

It turns out that the Bash (the "Bourne again shell") has a directory stack builtin. Three command line tools for manipulating the stack are avaliable dirs, pushd, and popd. More info about the directory stack in bash here.

If we pushd a directory onto the directory stack, we can retreive the top of the stack using dirs +1. I tried setting up some aliases to get it to work the way I wanted:

alias cdd='pushd'
alias cdb='cd `dirs +1`'

Those worked a bit, but I ran into a lot of problems, especially when in the home directory. Also when you run pushd, popd, or dirs it always prints the contents of the stack, I don't know how to suppress that. So I figured I would post it here, and see if anyone can come up with a solution, or if anyone knows of a better way of going about this.

Isn't it funny how software developers will spend hours of time trying to save a few seconds of their future time.

Trackbacks

Trackback Address: http://www.petefreitag.com/tb/66/A132A1E502B1F3B7C329191D6E9FBE4C

Comments

On 01/23/2004 at 1:19:30 AM MST John wrote:

1

cd - works. I don't think you need cd ~-.

On 04/24/2004 at 4:50:56 AM MDT Pritam wrote:

2

You can suppress the output redirecting the output to /dev/null e.g. pushd <dir-name> >> /dev/null popd >> /dev/null

On 07/11/2007 at 2:13:43 PM MDT Freddy wrote:

3

You can use small script from http://fvue.nl/cdots which defines 1-7 dots commands:

$/usr/local/share> ... sh[Tab]

$/usr/share>

More bashing

Just add the following to your ~/.bashrc or if you want to make this work system wide add this to /etc/bashrc:

#redefine pushd and popd so they don't output the directory stack
pushd()
{
    builtin pushd "$@" > /dev/null
}
popd()
{
    builtin popd "$@" > /dev/null
}

#alias cd so it uses the directory stack
alias cd='pushd'
#aliad cdb as a command that goes one directory back in the stack
alias cdb'popd'

The redefinition of pushd and popd redirects their output to /dev/null instead of your terminal. This prevents them from displaying the entire stack every time they are called
  Re:pushd and popd (and other tricks) (Score:1)
by camh (32881) on Wednesday March 10, @06:25PM (#8526528)

alias pd pushd

alias po popd

Similar to what I have, except I use pp instead of pd (because its faster to type) and pp without args takes you to your home directory (like cd without args). To go along with it, I use

alias r "pushd +1"

alias rr "cd "$OLDPWD"

If you're working within a number of directories, use pp to get to them and then use r to rotate between the directories. rr is convenient to quickly cd somewhere else to do something and then get back again.

pushd and popd (and other tricks) (Score:5, Informative)
by Komi (89040) <cgguenNO@SPAMattglobal.net> on Wednesday March 10, @02:41PM (#8524004)
(http://slashdot.org/) I've read throught the tcsh man pages and stole from other people and probably the least-known most useful trick I've found is pushd and popd (which I realias to pd and po), and of course directory stack substitution. Here's a snippet of code that's really useful:

alias pd pushd
alias po popd
cd /incredi/bly/long/path/name
pd /some/other/incredi/bly/long/path/name
cp *.mp3 =1 # =1 is the first entry on the dirstack
po # returns you back to first place

The other major time saver I use are sed and awk. I used each for a specific purpose. Sed works great for substitution, and awk I use to grab columns of data. Here's a sample of how I'd use both together. This will list the home directories of the users on a machine. It's simple, but there's a ton you can do with this technique.

who | awk '{print $1}' | sort | uniq | sed 's@^@/home/@g'

Here's other stuff I have grouped by sections in my .cshrc

First, I have my shell variables. The comments say what they do. The most important one is autolist.

set autolist # automatically lists possibilities after ambiguous completion
set dunique # removes duplicate entries in the dirstack
set fignore=(\~) # files ending in ~ will be ignored by completion
set histdup=prev # do not allow consecutive duplicate history entries
set noclobber # output redirection will not overwrite an existing file
set notify # notifies when a job completes
set symlinks=ignore # treats symbolic directories like real directories
set time=5 # processes that run longer than $time seconds will be timed.

Second, bindkeys are pretty neat. I rebind the up and down arrow keys. By default they scroll up and down one at a time through the history. You can bind them to search the history based on what you've typed so far.

bindkey -k up history-search-backward # up arrow key
bindkey -k down history-search-forward # down arrow key

Third, completes allow for customizing tab completion. When I change directories, tab only completes directory names. This also works for aliases, sets, setenvs, etc.

complete cd 'p/1/d/'
complete alias 'p/1/a/'
complete setenv 'p/1/e/'
complete set 'p/1/s/'

Fourth, I have all my aliases. I had to cut a bunch because of the lameness filter.

alias cwdcmd 'ls'
alias precmd 'echo -n "\033]0;$USER@`hostname` : $PWD\007"'
alias pd 'pushd'
alias po 'popd'
alias dirs 'dirs -v'
alias path 'printf "${PATH:as/:/\n/}\n"'
alias ff 'find . -name '\''\!:1'\'' -print \!:2*'
alias aw 'awk '\''{print $'\!:1'}'\'''
alias sub 'sed "s@"\!:1"@"\!:2"@g"'

Re:pushd and popd (and other tricks) (Score:1)
by MasterLock (581630) on Wednesday March 10, @03:23PM (#8524465)

Two of my most handy aliases (tcsh and 4DOS/4NT) are:

alias mcd 'md \!*; cd \!*'

alias rcd 'setenv OLD_DIR `pwd`;cd ..;echo $OLD_DIR;rd "$OLD_DIR"; unsetenv OLD_DIR' Usage: ~/> mcd junkDir ~/junk> -- do commands, unzip files, et cetera -- ~/junk> rcd ~/> -- back where you were and the dir is gone --

Re:pushd and popd (and other tricks) (Score:1, Informative)
by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 10, @03:25PM (#8524497)

alias pd pushd
alias po popd
cd /incredi/bly/long/path/name
pd /some/other/incredi/bly/long/path/name
cp *.mp3 =1 # =1 is the first entry on the dirstack
po # returns you back to first place

cd /some/directory/
cd /another/directory/
cp *.mp3 ~-
cd ~- Re:pushd and popd (and other tricks) (Score:2, Informative)
by MasterLock (581630) on Wednesday March 10, @03:33PM (#8524577)

f my most handy aliases (tcsh and 4DOS/4NT) are:

alias mcd 'md \!*; cd \!*'

alias rcd 'setenv OLD_DIR `pwd`; cd ..; echo $OLD_DIR;rd "$OLD_DIR"; unsetenv OLD_DIR'

Usage:
  ~/> mcd junkDir
  ~/junk> -- do commands, unzip files, et cetera --
  ~/junk> rcd
  ~/> -- back where you were and the dir is gone --

Microsoft Windows XP - Popd

@echo off
rem This batch file deletes all .txt files in a specified directory
pushd %1
del *.txt
popd
cls
echo All text files deleted in the %1 directory

An Introduction to the Z Shell - Directory Stacks

If you use csh, you may know about directory stacks. The pushd command puts the current directory on the stack, and changes to a new directory; the popd command pops a directory off the stack and changes to it.

phoenix% cd 
phoenix% PROMPT='Z %~> '
Z ~> pushd /tmp
/tmp ~
Z /tmp> pushd /usr/etc
/usr/etc /tmp ~
Z /usr/etc> pushd /usr/bin
/usr/bin /usr/etc /tmp ~
Z /usr/bin> popd
/usr/etc /tmp ~
Z /usr/etc> popd
/tmp ~
Z /tmp> pushd /etc
/etc /tmp ~
Z /etc> popd 
/tmp ~

zsh's directory stack commands work similarly. One difference is the way pushd is handled if no arguments are given. As in csh, this exchanges the top two elements of the directory stack:

Z /tmp> dirs
/tmp ~
Z /tmp> pushd
~ /tmp

unless the stack only has one entry:

Z ~> popd
/tmp
Z /tmp> dirs
/tmp
Z /tmp> pushd
~ /tmp

or unless the PUSHDTOHOME option is set:

Z ~> setopt pushdtohome
Z ~> pushd
~ ~ /tmp

As an alternative to using directory stacks in this manner, we can get something like a directory history by setting a few more options and parameters:

~> DIRSTACKSIZE=8
~> setopt autopushd pushdminus pushdsilent pushdtohome
~> alias dh='dirs -v'
~> cd /tmp
/tmp> cd /usr
/usr> cd bin
/usr/bin> cd ../pub
/usr/pub> dh
0       /usr/pub
1       /usr/bin
2       /usr
3       /tmp
4       ~
/usr/pub> cd -3
/tmp> dh
0       /tmp
1       /usr/pub
2       /usr/bin
3       /usr
4       ~
/tmp> ls =2/df
/usr/bin/df
/tmp> cd -4
~>

Note that =2 expanded to the second directory in the history list, and that cd -3 recalled the third directory in the list.

You may be wondering what all those options do. AUTOPUSHD made cd act like pushd. (alias cd=pushd is not sufficient, for various reasons.) PUSHDMINUS swapped the meaning of cd +1 and cd -1; we want them to mean the opposite of what they mean in csh, because it makes more sense in this scheme, and it's easier to type:

~> dh
0       ~
1       /tmp
2       /usr/pub
3       /usr/bin
4       /usr
~> unsetopt pushdminus
~> cd +1
/tmp> dh
0       /tmp
1       ~
2       /usr/pub
3       /usr/bin
4       /usr
/tmp> cd +2
/usr/pub>

PUSHDSILENT keeps the shell from printing the directory stack each time we do a cd, and PUSHDTOHOME we mentioned earlier:

/usr/pub> unsetopt pushdsilent
/usr/pub> cd /etc
/etc /usr/pub /tmp ~ /usr/bin /usr
/etc> cd
~ /etc /usr/pub /tmp ~ /usr/bin /usr
~> unsetopt pushdtohome
~> cd
/etc ~ /usr/pub /tmp ~ /usr/bin /usr
/etc>

DIRSTACKSIZE keeps the directory stack from getting too large, much like HISTSIZE:

/etc> setopt pushdsilent
/etc> cd /
/> cd /
/> cd /
/> cd /
/> cd /
/> cd /
/> cd /
/> cd /
/> dh
0       /
1       /
2       /
3       /
4       /
5       /
6       /
7       /

Zsh offers a nice way to reference the directory stack quickly in your daily work. The description below is taken directly from the man page:

     A `~' followed by a number is replaced by the  directory  at
     that position in the directory stack.  `~0' is equivalent to
     `~+', and `~1' is the top of the stack.  `~+' followed by  a
     number  is replaced by the directory at that position in the
     directory stack.  `~+0' is equivalent to `~+', and `~+1'  is
     the top of the stack.  `~-' followed by a number is replaced
     by the directory that many positions from the bottom of  the
     stack.   `~-0'  is the bottom of the stack.  The PUSHD_MINUS
     option exchanges the effects of `~+' and `~-' where they are
     followed by a number.

History of visited directories in BASH LG #109 By Petar Marinov

Recommended Links

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In case of broken links please try to use Google search. If you find the page please notify us about new location

• Unix for Advanced Users - Navigating effectively - How do I remember where I was last
• Microsoft Windows XP - Popd
• An Introduction to the Z Shell - Directory Stacks
• dirs in Your Prompt: Better than $cwd
• History of visited directories in BASH LG #109 By Petar Marinov
• PushPop.vim - Pushd-Popd implementation for vim command-line vim online
• Hints and Musings
  • When I googled for a Korn shell pushd, the closest thing I found was an illicit copy (gone, but cached) of part of an O'Reilly book on shell programming. And that version did not support directory names containing spaces. Here's my implementation: first, stack operators, then popd and pd (pushd is too much to type :-). This code will NOT work with a Bourne shell (it needs functions, typeset, and arrays to function in the Korn shell manner); and it will not work with bash - but bash already has pushd and popd.

Reference

dirs

dirs [+N | -N] [-clpv]

Display the list of currently remembered directories. Directories are added to the list with the pushd command; the popd command removes directories from the list.

+N

Displays the Nth directory (counting from the left of the list printed by dirs when invoked without options), starting with zero.

-N

Displays the Nth directory (counting from the right of the list printed by dirs when invoked without options), starting with zero.

-c

Clears the directory stack by deleting all of the elements.

-l

Produces a longer listing; the default listing format uses a tilde to denote the home directory.

-p

Causes dirs to print the directory stack with one entry per line.

-v

Causes dirs to print the directory stack with one entry per line, prefixing each entry with its index in the stack.

popd

popd [+N | -N] [-n]

Remove the top entry from the directory stack, and cd to the new top directory. When no arguments are given, popd removes the top directory from the stack and performs a cd to the new top directory. The elements are numbered from 0 starting at the first directory listed with dirs; i.e., popd is equivalent to popd +0.

+N

Removes the Nth directory (counting from the left of the list printed by dirs), starting with zero.

-N

Removes the Nth directory (counting from the right of the list printed by dirs), starting with zero.

-n

Suppresses the normal change of directory when removing directories from the stack, so that only the stack is manipulated.

 

pushd

pushd [dir | +N | -N] [-n]

Save the current directory on the top of the directory stack and then cd to dir. With no arguments, pushd exchanges the top two directories.

+N

Brings the Nth directory (counting from the left of the list printed by dirs, starting with zero) to the top of the list by rotating the stack.

-N

Brings the Nth directory (counting from the right of the list printed by dirs, starting with zero) to the top of the list by rotating the stack.

-n

Suppresses the normal change of directory when adding directories to the stack, so that only the stack is manipulated.

dir

Makes the current working directory be the top of the stack, and then executes the equivalent of `cd dir'. cds to dir.

DIRSTACK

An array variable (see section Arrays) containing the current contents of the directory stack. Directories appear in the stack in the order they are displayed by the dirs builtin. Assigning to members of this array variable may be used to modify directories already in the stack, but the pushd and popd builtins must be used to add and remove directories. Assignment to this variable will not change the current directory. If DIRSTACK is unset, it loses its special properties, even if it is subsequently reset.