Two Useful bashrc Functions that will Change Your Life

Ever wanted to go up a few directories when using the bash terminal? You probably had to do something like this:
cd .. (enter) cd .. (enter) cd .. (enter)

…until the end of time.

Worry not, for gone are those days. I was just browsing through some stackoverflow questions and ran into these extremely useful bashrc functions.

#functions for going up a certain number of directories and back
function up( )
{
    LIMIT=$1
    P=$PWD
    for ((i=1; i <= LIMIT; i++))
    do
        P=$P/..
    done
    cd $P
    export MPWD=$P
    }

function back( )
{
    LIMIT=$1
    P=$MPWD
    for ((i=1; i <= LIMIT; i++))
    do
        P=${P%/..}
    done
    cd $P
    export MPWD=$P
}

#functions for going up a certain number of directories and back

function up( )

{

LIMIT=$1

P=$PWD

for ((i=1; i <= LIMIT; i++))

P=$P/..

done

cd $P

export MPWD=$P

}

function back( )

{

LIMIT=$1

P=$MPWD

for ((i=1; i <= LIMIT; i++))

P=${P%/..}

done

cd $P

export MPWD=$P

}

Now, all you have to do to go up N directories is type in up N, hit enter, and like magic, you’re up those many directories.

Here’s an example

Let’s say I’m here:

I want to go up 3 directories. Normally, this would involve typing in cd .. (enter) three times. Now, all I have to do is type up 3 and I am there, like so:

Now, say I want to go back up 2 directories. All I have to do is type back 2, and I’m there.

So, how do you install these neat little commands? Here’s a step by step guide:

Open up your terminal with Ctrl + Alt + T.
If you’re not already there, go to your home directory with cd (enter).
Load up your .bashrc file in your favourite text editor. For me, this was gvim .bashrc.
Add these functions to your .bashrc file, save, and quit.

5. Go back to your home directory and source your bashrc file like so: source .bashrc

6. You’re done! Enjoy your new bash commands. 🙂

If you like these nifty little commands, please leave a comment below.

5 Comments

awesome giri says:

June 6, 2015 at 10:33 pm

wow. this is life changing sir. thank you for the awesomeness.

1. Ashish Acharya says:
  
  June 6, 2015 at 10:49 pm
  
  As promised, hehe. Thanks. 🙂
  
rho says:

June 22, 2015 at 10:06 am

try binding keyboard shortcuts to it, its better than typing 😀

here is my conf.. for bash
https://github.com/rhoit/my-config/blob/master/shell/inputrc

1. Ashish Acharya says:
  
  June 22, 2015 at 5:16 pm
  
  Haha, this is even better. Thanks for the suggestion, dai.
  
nabn says:

September 14, 2015 at 9:38 pm

in zsh, you have handy aliases such as cd... (with three dots) meaning go up two directories. cd... to go up three and so on pre-configured for you. If you need to go up more than that, then you might wanna look at this plugin: https://github.com/rupa/z

It’s quite magical, I tell you!

And if you’re not using zsh by now, you should! It’s like bash, but on steroids. 🙂

Here’s an example

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