Make pwd print escape character

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I decided I wanted to have the cd command print my full working directory after each cd command, so I put this cw command in .bashrc as a function.

cw ()
{
       cd "${1}"
       pwd
}

While this works I would like pwd to print escapes when a space in a directory name exists. This would then make it easy for me to copy and paste as opposed to putting it in quotes.

> mkdir -p /tmp/foo\ bar/baz
cd /tmp/
> cw foo\ bar/baz/
/tmp/foo bar/baz
>

I would prefer the output to be:

/tmp/foo\ bar/baz

unfortunately pwd does not have any option for this.

2

How about:

cd ()
{
    cd "$@"
    echo ${PWD// /\\ }
}

I used "$@" instead of "$1" just in case you wanted to use -L or -P with cd

3

Thanks, that works.

I would like to have used cd as the function name but using cd as the function calls cd which is now the function, i.e. loop and stuck.

cd is a builtin so cannot provide the full path to "cd". I imagine an alias would have the same problem?

4

Why not alias it:

alias cd="cw"

As long as you dont have shopt -s expand_aliases in your cw function it should be OK. BTW you can use \cd at the prompt to use the builtin cd (bypassing the alias).

5

You can use the "builtin" builtin to call the cd builtin from within the cd function:

builtin cd

Regards,
Alister

1 Like
6

Perfect. the "builtin cd" is what I needed and placed it in the function and it works. I was having the same loop problem using an alias and did not have the "shopt -s expand_aliases" option.

So the function needs to be like this to work.

cd ()
{
        builtin cd "${@}"
        echo ${PWD// /\\ }
}

And no need for the alias.

Thanks very much to you both!

7

Nice alister, thanks.

Never had call to use builtin, as you can probably tell I don't really like the idea of alias myself, I'd rather have the shell do what I type.

8

I don't think I've ever used it myself, but I happened to be aware of it. There's also a 'command' builtin to bypass functions and builtins and go straight to $PATH lookup (assuming there are no slashes in the command name).

Now ... if someone defines a function named 'builtin' or 'command', the universe will probably implode. :wink:

Regards,
Alister

1 Like