UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi!

Suppose I am at a location xyz:/abc1/abc2/abc3

Is it possible to move to another location xyz:/mnl1/mnl2/mnl3

by some coding within a script?

Didn't cd help you?

Thanks
Nagarajan G

Maybe you are confused by the fact that if you put a cd command into a file and then execute the file your working directory doesn't change.

This is because the script is executing in a subshell that inherits your current environment. When the script finishes any changes it made to its own environment are lost with it.

The answer is to execute the script within your current environment rather than in a subprocess. This is called sourcing the script due to the command "source" used to accomplish this in the csh. It's still called sourcing the script even though the syntax is simply to use a dot in ksh or bash.

So, if a file called script contains a cd command, then

. script

will change your current working directory.

Your answer is not very clear to me. Can you explain it with an example!

If your current working directory is:

/abc1/abc2/abc3

and you want it to be /mnl1/mnl2/mnl3 then enter the command

cd /mnl1/mnl2/mnl3

This bit of your question "by some coding within a script?" is what I was trying to answer but I'm now assuming that you didn't know you could change directories without using a script.

I am able to do that. Thanks a lot for the support.