I had to modify Jeroen's code to get the `marks` shortcut working under Mac OS 10.8:
export MARKPATH=$HOME/.marks
function jump {
cd -P $MARKPATH/$1 2> /dev/null || echo "No such mark: $1"
}
function mark {
mkdir -p $MARKPATH; ln -s $(pwd) $MARKPATH/$1
}
function unmark {
rm -i $MARKPATH/$1
}
function marks {
ls -l $MARKPATH | sed 's/ / /g' | cut -d' ' -f9- && echo
}
One more fix... if you have group names with spaces this will throw the field number off and you'll see the modification time preceding the mark name.
Adding '-n' to the ls command works around this by causing the group id to be printed instead of the group name and all works, i.e.:
\ls -ln "$MARKPATH" | tail -n +2 | sed 's/ / /g' | cut -d' ' -f9- | awk -F ' -> ' '{printf "%-10s -> %s\n", $1, $2}'
I set my version up with a -f on the unmark rm so that I don't need to be prompted to remove it. Also added some basic completion for both jump and unmark
export MARKPATH=$HOME/.marks
function jump {
cd -P $MARKPATH/$1 2>/dev/null || echo "No such mark: $1"
}
function mark {
mkdir -p $MARKPATH; ln -s $(pwd) $MARKPATH/$1
}
function unmark {
rm -if $MARKPATH/$1
}
function marks {
ls -l $MARKPATH | sed 's/ / /g' | cut -d' ' -f9- | sed 's/ -/\t-/g' && echo
}
_completemarks() {
local curw=${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}
local wordlist=$(find $MARKPATH -type l -printf "%f\n")
COMPREPLY=($(compgen -W '${wordlist[@]}' -- "$curw"))
return 0
}
complete -F _completemarks jump unmark
I recommend avoiding -f on rm if you can. Make one mistake and it can be painful. In this case think removing the -i from the unmark function will accomplish what you want.
I made something to the OP's system for the same reason of disdain for super deep trees at work. I'll make a gist and edit this post with it in a few minutes.
I like the OP's idea of using symbolic links. That makes it more generally useful (i.e. a gui app can use those simple paths too). I may switch over to that.
Reminds me of z, which I use all the time. Anyone else use z? If you have not heard of it, get it now https://github.com/rupa/z.
z is a wonderful complement to cd. After cd into a folders with z set up, a file stores all folders navigated to sorted by frecency, then simply jump to a folder with z [foldernameregex].
z is absolutely wonderful. Even my boss has become a convert, and he's been hacking unix since the 1970s, when he worked at AT&T, and is very set in his ways.
For Windows users I have a closely related shameless plug:
cdhere navigates your cmd.exe to wherever the current topmost Explorer window is pointed at.
It's not the same as the OP's trick, of course, but since you're voluntarily using Windows, I'm going to assume you "live" on the command line less than the average UNIX user, and more on GUI tools such as good old Explorer.
What many people don't seem to know is that the location bar in Explorer (at least on Windows 8) can act as a run dialog, and it supplies the launched program with the current folder as a parameter. So simply hit Ctrl+L and type "cmd" or "powershell" or whatever command from your PATH and hit enter.
I'm not sure voluntary is necessarily true. I have had to use Windows several times because we were working with Windows only programs.
On a different note, back in UNIX land I found myself doing the opposite of what you described: opening the file explorer to the same directory as the command-line. Of course, there is not much to that trick other than choosing an explorer that opens to the working directory or a path provided as an arguement.
On Windows you can also get a nice "browse for folder" dialog in batch files with Wfolder [1]. If you replace "cdwhere.exe" in your script (cdhere.cmd) with "wfolder.exe" [2] and put wfolder.exe in the same directory as cdhere.cmd then instead of going to the location open in the topmost Explorer window the "cdhere" command will ask you where to cd, starting at your current location (like so: http://i.imgur.com/3MCzD4b.png).
Edit: Wfolder comes with a script that's analogous to cdhere.cmd.
I used to have a really hacky AppleScript to do the same thing in OS X. The crappy part was that launching the whole AppleScript runtime was really slow, but that was the only API I could find with getting that information from the Finder.
You can also use ranger [1] to change directories, especially if you want to explore the directory tree quickly when you don't know exactly where to jump to. Install it and add the following to ~/.bashrc:
function ranger-cd {
tempfile='/tmp/chosendir'
/usr/bin/ranger --choosedir="$tempfile" "${@:-$(pwd)}"
test -f "$tempfile" &&
if [ "$(cat -- "$tempfile")" != "$(echo -n `pwd`)" ]; then
cd -- "$(cat "$tempfile")"
fi
rm -f -- "$tempfile"
}
# This binds Ctrl-O to ranger-cd:
bind '"\C-o":"ranger-cd\C-m"'
(This script comes from the man page for ranger(1).)
Edit: Modified the above script for use with zsh (and multiple users):
ranger-cd() {
tempfile=$(mktemp)
ranger --choosedir="$tempfile" "${@:-$(pwd)}" < $TTY
test -f "$tempfile" &&
if [ "$(cat -- "$tempfile")" != "$(echo -n `pwd`)" ]; then
cd -- "$(cat "$tempfile")"
fi
rm -f -- "$tempfile"
}
# This binds Ctrl-O to ranger-cd:
zle -N ranger-cd
bindkey '^o' ranger-cd
Good idea, but you shouldn't overwrite ctrl-O, which is a wildly useful function in bash: run current command in history and retrieve the next. If you want to re-run a sequence of several history commands, you can find the first in history (such as via ctrl-R reverse-isearch), then repeatedly hit ctrl-O to run it and retrieve the next command from history.
What is your distribution? I've just tried it and it's available in both Ubuntu 12.04 and Debian 7. The launchpad page says that it should be in later Ubuntu releases, too. Enable the "universe" repository then run apt-get update and see if it fixes the problem.
I used to use z, but I've since switched to fasd. It's much like z, but also so much better. In addition to being able to do "z <part of directory>" you can do "f <part of file>". So, for example, if I've got a rails project I've worked on a lot recently I know its config.ru is high on frecency, so I'll just do "vim `f config`" to edit that file. If I want a file that's not so recent I can always do "vim `f -i config`" to pick from a list of files.
fasd is leaps and bounds above z in functionality, and I've thoroughly enjoyed using it.
I put z and fasd through their paces, and out of the box z works very intuitively. I like it. fasd takes a little more to get used to, but I'm going to put it through a full try out. Let's see if the additional features make it worth the while. In either case, thanks all for a great thread.
Readit News
Adding '-n' to the ls command works around this by causing the group id to be printed instead of the group name and all works, i.e.: \ls -ln "$MARKPATH" | tail -n +2 | sed 's/ / /g' | cut -d' ' -f9- | awk -F ' -> ' '{printf "%-10s -> %s\n", $1, $2}'
Try removing the -i option to obtain what you want.
I made something to the OP's system for the same reason of disdain for super deep trees at work. I'll make a gist and edit this post with it in a few minutes.
Edit: https://gist.github.com/desertmonad/6258429
I like the OP's idea of using symbolic links. That makes it more generally useful (i.e. a gui app can use those simple paths too). I may switch over to that.
local wordlist=$(ls $MARKPATH)
Dead Comment
Does anyone here know offhand how autocompletion in `zsh` works?
z is a wonderful complement to cd. After cd into a folders with z set up, a file stores all folders navigated to sorted by frecency, then simply jump to a folder with z [foldernameregex].
[Disclaimer: rupa's a good friend of mine]
[Disclaimer: rupa is a good friend of mine, as well]
cdhere navigates your cmd.exe to wherever the current topmost Explorer window is pointed at.
It's not the same as the OP's trick, of course, but since you're voluntarily using Windows, I'm going to assume you "live" on the command line less than the average UNIX user, and more on GUI tools such as good old Explorer.
https://github.com/eteeselink/cdhere
FYI: On Windows 7, you need to press Alt+D to get to the location bar. (I believe that's the case for XP as well.) Ctrl+L doesn't seem to do anything.
Neither Ctrl+L nor Alt+D work for me (Win7 Ultimate, 64bit), but even with clicking manually this is extremely useful for me.
On a different note, back in UNIX land I found myself doing the opposite of what you described: opening the file explorer to the same directory as the command-line. Of course, there is not much to that trick other than choosing an explorer that opens to the working directory or a path provided as an arguement.
On Windows you can also get a nice "browse for folder" dialog in batch files with Wfolder [1]. If you replace "cdwhere.exe" in your script (cdhere.cmd) with "wfolder.exe" [2] and put wfolder.exe in the same directory as cdhere.cmd then instead of going to the location open in the topmost Explorer window the "cdhere" command will ask you where to cd, starting at your current location (like so: http://i.imgur.com/3MCzD4b.png).
Edit: Wfolder comes with a script that's analogous to cdhere.cmd.
[1] http://www.horstmuc.de/wcon.htm
[2] I did it in http://pastebin.com/aq0FiKmz.
Edit: Modified the above script for use with zsh (and multiple users):
[1] http://ranger.nongnu.org/.it says it's not available. any idea why ranger is not longer available in package manager?
I used to use z, but I've since switched to fasd. It's much like z, but also so much better. In addition to being able to do "z <part of directory>" you can do "f <part of file>". So, for example, if I've got a rails project I've worked on a lot recently I know its config.ru is high on frecency, so I'll just do "vim `f config`" to edit that file. If I want a file that's not so recent I can always do "vim `f -i config`" to pick from a list of files.
fasd is leaps and bounds above z in functionality, and I've thoroughly enjoyed using it.