UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi Friends !
I want to change my current directory through a script.
I am running the script say, from /home/proj directory.
The script is like this :

#!/usr/bin/sh
cd module/pack/data


once i run the script, i am still in /home/proj directory only.
My problem is, i dont want to type the big directory structure every time i want to change the directory. So, say i will place the above 2 lines in a file named "a" and i will just i run "a" , i will be taken into /home/proj/module/pack/data directory directly.

please suggest me a way out for this !

thanks,

you could use a variable for your "main" path like:
MAIN=/home/proj/module/
$MAIN/blabla.sh
$MAIN/2nd-dir/blabla2.sh

gP

mrgubbala,

You can either define alias ( man alias ) or run your script as
. ./myscript.ksh

rather than

./myscript.ksh

As Phantom indicates, the easiest way would be to define an alias or function within your shells initialisation files that do this.

Have a look at my sample .kshrc file. There is a "cd aliases" section there.... Obviously this is for the Korn shell but most of it will work with bash too.

As pressy indicates, setting up environment variables with commonly navigated directories is also a good idea. Define and export them within your .profile (or .bash_profile, whatever), e.g.

export WEB=/path/to/my/webroot

Then, to edit a file, for example, all you have to type is

vi $WEB/index.html

Cheers
ZB

Thanks for your reply.

But I would like to know what does it mean to shell by typing
. ./myscript.ksh

rather than

./myscript.ksh

Can you please explain me.
Thanks,

when you run the script as . ./myscript commands in the script are executed in the same shell. Therefore, if you change directory or any shell variable, the results stay in effect after the script is completed.

In contrast, by running as ./myscript, the script will be executed in subshell and directory (or variable) changes done in it will be effective only until the script exits.