cd 3 times to great-grandparent dir

Question

I have this:

cd $(dirname $(dirname $(dirname "$0"))) &&

which will cd to project root.

Is there shorthand for this somehow, where I can just be like:

cd 3 &&  # not quite, but you get the idea

or whatever, I mean why not you know?

Maybe a command like so would be ideal:

cdx 3 &&

since cd has no idea that 3 is not a file or directory.

Using pushd, popd and dirs to navigate directories is the most useful shorthand — flerb, Jul 17 '17 at 19:49

Bob Eager · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-19T05:49:56.840

1

You do know that cd .. takes you to the parent directory? So, if I understand your question correctly, you could use:

cd $(dirname $0)/../../..

edited Jul 19 '17 at 05:49

answered Jul 17 '17 at 19:36

Bob Eager

should it be: cd "$0/../../.." (with quotes) – Alexander Mills Jul 17 '17 at 20:15
this is much better than what I have – Alexander Mills Jul 17 '17 at 20:16
This is not equivalent in all cases. cd -P and cd -L may give different results. If way not work at all: if d1 exists but d1/d2/d3/d4 does not. – ctrl-alt-delor Jul 17 '17 at 20:43
That won't work because $0 is not a directory. You need to call dirname or do string processing to extract the directory part of $0. – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Jul 19 '17 at 00:22

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 17 '17 at 19:40

1

Define this function:

dirx(){ a=$0;for((i=0;i<$1;i++));do a=${a%/*};done;cd "$a"; }

And do:

$ dirx 3

answered Jul 17 '17 at 19:40

This only works if $0 contains sufficiently many path components, not if it's just bar or foo/bar. – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Jul 19 '17 at 00:23
@Gilles It fails gracefully to the string provided. If it is just bar, it results on cd bar. If bar doesn't exist, it provides a clear error mesage: bash: cd: bar: No such file or directory. What is not robust enought for you? – Jul 19 '17 at 01:44

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 17 '17 at 19:34

0

You can use parameter expansion in bash:

cd "${0%/*/*/*}"

or even simpler in zsh:

cd $0:h:h:h

answered Jul 17 '17 at 19:34

jimmij

This only works if $0 contains sufficiently many path components, not if it's just bar or foo/bar. – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Jul 19 '17 at 00:23

3 Answers3