J: an alternative to cd that learns where you spend time

http://github.com/rupa/j/tree

by burke • 17 years ago

55 23 17 years ago

github.com

burke• 17 years ago

For any zsh users out there, I made a couple changes so it works in zsh: http://github.com/burke/j

codyrobbins• 17 years ago

Perfect, that's just what I was looking for. Thanks!

calambrac3• 17 years ago

This is nice.

Kind of but not really in a similar vein: I have 'sd' aliased to a small script that goes to the 'next interesting directory', where an 'interesting directory' is one with a visible non-directory or more than one sub-directory. So, for instance, if you're sitting at foo, and underneath you is bar/baz/bat/bit.txt, 'sd bar' will bring you all the way down to bat, and then 'sd ..' will pull you all the way back up to the previous interesting directory.

Just to keep from getting lost, it does a pwd when it gets where it's going, and because typing ls after cd had burned itself into my muscle memory, it goes ahead and does that, too.

It's a small thing, but I really like it for hopping around source trees in languages that use directories to denote package structure.

brunoqc2• 17 years ago

Post like you just did should have a mandatory link to the code :)

calambrac3• 17 years ago

There's a python portion: http://pastebin.com/f16aae31d

And a small bash function (since you can only change your shell's pwd from the shell itself):

http://pastebin.com/f5d93d12a

jrockway• 17 years ago

The name "sd" conflicts with this, however:

http://github.com/obra/sd/tree/master

Yay for two-letter identifiers. ;)

calambrac3• 17 years ago

It's just a bash function, you can name it anything you want, and the tool you linked is hardly standard.

msg2• 17 years ago

why not use CDPATH?

At work, I have the interesting heads of our source tree in CDPATH, so I can get to most directories I care about by typing their short names.

For instance http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=200503181431142...

Harkins• 17 years ago

Because you don't have to teach it, it just learns.

msg2• 17 years ago

With J I have to visit directories to add them to my index. This ramp-up is annoying.

With CDPATH, I index it all at the beginning. If I find a new major head in my directory tree, I just add it.

thorax• 17 years ago

Very neat tool. I saw this when it was mentioned on a post I made not long ago.

If you want something you can simply add to .bashrc, here are some bash functions to also help jump around to directories you want: http://mattie.posterous.com/some-handy-bash-commands

There's a link there for the "up" command (taking you to some directory higher in your path with that name) and also for "down" (similar downward) and "cdd" which just does a rapid use of locate to find the first directory that matches.

braindead_in• 17 years ago

awesome. huge timesaver. wish it could for for cp paths too

lysium• 17 years ago

you could add a completion for cp commands just like in the last line of j.sh

      complete -o dirnames -o filenames -C "j --complete" cp mv

or something similar.

akkartik• 17 years ago

My version: http://akkartik.name/bash.html#cd

But this is nice and self-contained.

zacharypinter• 17 years ago

I prefer the proggit headline: "Where the fuck has this been for the last 30 years? A cd command that learns."

bluishgreen• 17 years ago

http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/by/senthil

second one, simple - effective

truebosko3• 17 years ago

Ok, I feel like an idiot. When it says "source this into your .bashrc" what does it mean?

I know where .bashrc is, but simply pasting it into the file seems like .. the wrong way to do it. Couldn't really find an answer on Google

parenthesis• 17 years ago

I think what is referred to is bash's source command: when you've modified your .bashrc and you want the changes to be reflected in your current shell process, you do

  source .bashrc

or, equivalently

  . .bashrc

which runs .bashrc in the current shell, as opposed to in a forked subshell as happens if you did ./.bashrc ; and hence the new functions/aliases/variable settings you've put in .bashrc are now available in the current shell (as opposed to only being visible in a forked subshell and disappearing when it exits).

truebosko3• 17 years ago

Now it's clearer, thank you! :)

inky• 17 years ago

Add a line to the end of your ~/.bashrc file with:

    . $HOME/.bash/j.sh

(Change that path to point to wherever j.sh is, though ~/.bash is probably a good place for it.)

truebosko3• 17 years ago

Thanks so much! Makes sense

J: an alternative to cd that learns where you spend time

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