I’m often posting advanced tips, today I will talk about something very simple, but that I noticed even experienced terminal users are not aware of: the cd - command.
The cd command, short for “change directory” is used in both Windows Command Prompt and Linux terminals to navigate through the file system.
The following command will
bring you to a folder /var/log
~$ cd /var/log
This is basic, OK.
Let’s go further.
~$ cd src/foo/bar
src/foo/bar$ #do something, but you have to move to another folder
src/foo/bar$ cd /var/log
/var/log$ # do something, but you have to move back to src/foo/bar
/var/log$ cd ~/src/foo/bar
src/foo/bar: $ # do something, but you have to move to log folder
src/foo/bar$ cd /var/log
/var/log$ # whatever
OK these are basic moves.
You all know cd .., cd ~, or cd, but do you know about cd - ?
cd - will bring you back to previous folder.
Let’s try the same navigation example
~$ cd src/foo/bar
src/foo/bar$ #do something, but you have to move to another folder
src/foo/bar$ cd /var/log
/var/log$ #do something, but you have to move back to src/foo/bar, we could use cd ~/src/foo/bar, but let's try cd -
/var/log$ cd -
src/foo/bar$ #do something, but you have to move to log folder, cd - will bring you back to
src/foo/bar$ cd -
/var/log$ # whatever
This something I’m using multiple times a day
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