Shell Programming and Scripting

If you run it under strace/truss/tusc, you can see it traverse every directory and exactly what path is in error. It's very educational! Remember that .. is a real directory entry (same for .), so it should work just as well as any entry name. Not like '~' and '~username' ! I often miscount the ../ by one!

If you're using bash or ksh, you can use pushd & popd instead of cd.

Code:

pushd dirname >/dev/null 2>/dev/null

...

popd >/dev/null 2>/dev/null # puts you back where you started

You can "cd" anc "cd -", too, but I prefer to never leave $HOME except in ():

Code:

$ ( cd x/y/z
for f in *
do
 . . .
done
)

pushd/popd are not supported in ksh/bash/bourne shell.

I resolved the issue and all is good. Just been too busy to respond. Thanks for all the ideas.

Joe

They are not all the same.

KSH supports it.

BASH supports it.

Generic bourne does not.

I just performed a check and pushd/popd only exists (at least on my install) in csh. It may be an add-on package that our IT goblins do not install.

I wish pushd/popd DID exist on my install, that is for certain.

It's not an add-on, it's a shell built-in and has to be a shell builtin to work, just like cd. A cd binary would be pretty useless (your cd program succeeds in changing directory -- but your shell remains where it is).*

You can write a function to emulate it but it would be annoying to do and imperfect, since some of the side effects (keeping the directory open) couldn't be duplicated.

KSH93 has it, pretty sure. KSH88 and PDKSH may not. BASH definitely has it.

* If you want to be picky, a cd binary does have some uses, but none of them are what you'd usually want cd for.