How can I move up a directory?
The parent of a directory is the directory above it.
For example, /home
is the parent of /home/repl
,
and /home/repl
is the parent of /home/repl/seasonal
.
You can always give the absolute path of your parent directory to commands like cd
and ls
.
More often,
though,
you will take advantage of the fact that the special path ..
(two dots with no spaces) means "the directory above the one I'm currently in".
If you are in /home/repl/seasonal
,
then cd ..
moves you up to /home/repl
.
If you use cd ..
once again,
it puts you in /home
.
One more cd ..
puts you in the root directory /
,
which is the very top of the filesystem.
(Remember to put a space between cd
and ..
- it is a command and a path, not a single four-letter command.)
A single dot on its own, .
, always means "the current directory",
so ls
on its own and ls .
do the same thing,
while cd .
has no effect
(because it moves you into the directory you're currently in).
One final special path is ~
(the tilde character),
which means "your home directory",
such as /home/repl
.
No matter where you are,
ls ~
will always list the contents of your home directory,
and cd ~
will always take you home.
If you are in
/home/repl/seasonal
,
where does cd ~/../.
take you?This exercise is part of the course
Introduction to Shell
Hands-on interactive exercise
Turn theory into action with one of our interactive exercises
