Bash – Shortcut to Change to the Previous Directory

bashcd-commandshell

Sadly, I only learned about this last year by stumbling upon it randomly on the internet. I use it so infrequently that I always forget what it is by the time I need it again.

How do you change to your previous directory?

Best Answer

The shortcut is -

Try cd -

If you want to use this in your prompt, you have to refer to it with ~-.

See the example:

[echox@kaffeesatz ~]$ cd /tmp
[echox@kaffeesatz tmp]$ ls
cron.iddS32  serverauth.CfIgeXuvka
[echox@kaffeesatz tmp]$ cd -
/home/echox
[echox@kaffeesatz ~]$ ls ~-
cron.iddS32  serverauth.CfIgeXuvka

Related Solutions

Bash – How to open a new terminal in the same directory of the last used one from a window manager keybind

I see three solutions using .last_dir. You can place the echo $PWD > ~/.last_dir either:

In a special function that would be a wrapper for cd:
```
function cd_
{
  [[ -d "$@" ]] || return 1
  echo "$@" > ~/.last_dir
  cd "$@"
}
```
Place this in your ~/.bashrc and then use cd_ instead of cd every time you want your new working directory to be stored.
In your $PROMPT_COMMAND (not recommended):
```
PROMPT_COMMAND="$PROMPT_COMMAND; pwd > ~/.last_dir"
```
You can test this directly from the terminal or place it in ~/.bashrc. This solution, however, triggers a disk write each time the prompt appears, which might cause trouble - but on the other hand, .last_dir would contain the current directory no matter how you got there.
In a custom perl extension script for rxvt. I've never created one myself, but you can find quite a few examples on the web.

Bash – Shell: How to get the last argument the previous command when it was detached

\e-\e. (or pressing - and . while holding alt/option) inserts the second last word.

Similarly, \e-2\e. inserts the third last word, and \e2\e. inserts the third word.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Bash – How to open a new terminal in the same directory of the last used one from a window manager keybind

Bash – Shell: How to get the last argument the previous command when it was detached

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