How can I create an alias for cd and ls?
I frequently run the ls command after running the cd command. How can I create an alias (like cs) for this operation?
6 Answers
From Bash Tips and Tricks: 'cd' with style:
Finally, I want to show you how to write your own custom replacement for the 'cd' command.
Do you find yourself always typing the same thing upon changing into a directory? You probably at least list the files there every time, perhaps so much that your hands automatically type 'ls' after every 'cd'.
Well, by trying every way I could think of, it turns out there's only one way to properly accomplish the goal we're seeking. We have to create a shell function.
Shell functions are part of shell programming. Like in compiled programming languages, functions provide a sort of procedural modularizability. One can create a generic function to perform an often-used bit of logic or computation with different parameters. In this case, the parameter is the current working directory.
Here's a simple one:
function cs () { cd $1 ls }
As @geirha corretly notes, the above function will fail if you try to switch to a directory with a space in its name:
$ cs A\ B/
-bash: cd: A: No such file or directory
<current directory listing> You should instead use the following function:
function cs () { cd "$@" && ls }Once you add that code to your ~/.bashrc, you should be able to do this:
hello@world:~$ cs Documents/
example.pdf tunafish.odt
hello@world:~/Documents$You can use the builtin command in bash :
function cd() { new_directory="$*"; if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then new_directory=${HOME}; fi; builtin cd "${new_directory}" && ls
}Use a function instead of an alias:
cs() { cd "$1" && ls; }Thanks Florian Diesch for the tip of using a function. I can't use cs as the name because there is a cs command in the csound package, so I used lc.
I added this to ~/.bash_aliases (nano ~/.bash_aliases):
function lc () { cd $1; ls
}The terminal needs to be reset for this to come into effect.
As an expansion to this function: cs() { cd "$1" && ls; }, you may want to pass all of the function's arguments to cd by using $@ instead of "$1" as such: cs() { cd $@ && ls; }.
I had problems redefining cd because rvm changes my cd definition too. See . I didn't really want to use builtin because that would skip whatever rvm is doing.
I added the following to my .bashrc:
# cdd allows you to cd to the directory of the given file or directory
function cdd()
{ if [[ $# -eq 0 ]]; then cd elif [[ -d "$*" ]]; then cd "$*" elif [[ -f "$*" ]]; then echo "WARNING: file given, cd to file's dirname" 1>&2 local dir=$(dirname "$*") cd "$dir" else cd "$*" fi
}
function cs()
{ cdd $* && ls
}And then after the rmv line in the .bashrc:
alias cd='cdd'
# Use bash built in completion for cd to allow for filenames to be used
complete -r cd
