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From: gordon@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu (John Gordon)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: using cd command in a file
Message-ID: <1991May21.021325.11832@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 21 May 91 02:13:25 GMT
Article-I.D.: ux1.1991May21.021325.11832
References: <1991May20.201923.27920@garfield.ncat.edu>
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muquit@garfield.ncat.edu (MUHAMMAD A. MUQUIT) writes:

>In article <1991May20.155136.25162@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Charles Blair writes:
>>
>>   I would like to get to a directory /me/A/B/C/D by just typing j.  I tried
>>creating a file j with cd /me/etc in it, then chmod +x j.  It didn't work.
>>Thanks in advance.  I'm sure I'm overlooking something well-known.

>You can do the job if you put this line in your .login file:
>     alias j 'cd /me/A/B/C/D'

>I'm also curious why your way didn't work.  I think  there're lots of gurus
>out there to answer this.

	Alias is definitely the way to go here.  As to why the script-file
solution did not work: Whenever you invoke a script-file, it creates its
own shell.  Within this shell, it cd's to the right directory, but then
the script-file process terminates and your shell is still sitting right
where it was before.

John