Move to a directory with shell/bash scripting

[borisre]

Hello all,
I want to move to some direcotory on my server, but to get to this directory I must type 3 long names of parent direcotiries everytime.
Instead of that I want to write a script that take me to this directory when I'm running the file that contains the script.
I wrote this one, but it won't work:
The name of the script file is for example : scriptfile.
The name of my destination directory is: destdir.

#!/bin/sh
scriptfile=cd /longdirname/longdirname/destdir

I would like to get some help with this.
Thanks ahead,
Boris Reuven

[xuo]

Hi,

I am not sure to understand what you want to do but :
if you want to go to a directory when you are in a shell window, you can create an alias (under csh/tcsh)
Ex : in your .cshrc/.tcshrc file :
alias newdir 'cd /longdirname/longdirname/destdir'

Then under the shell prompt :
# newdir

or if you prefer to run a script :

#!/bin/sh
cd /longdirname/longdirname/destdir
exit 0

# chmod 755 scriptfile
<put the directory where scriptfile script is in your PATH environment>
# scriptfile

Regards.

Eric.

[drl]

Hi.

Generally, each process inherits settings from the parent, but not vice-versa. So if you have a script that does a cd, it will do that in the current script process, but that will have no effect on the parent (unless you use source or ".", q.v., to run the script in the current process). I find the latter to be non-intuitive.

For interactive work, I use variable CDPATH (cdpath in tcsh) to avoid having to enter long sequences. Auto-completion is another possibility ... cheers, drl

CDPATH The search path for the cd command. This is a colon-separated
list of directories in which the shell looks for destination
directories specified by the cd command. A sample value is
".:~:/usr".
-- excerpt from man bash