Navigation in the unix shell

Learning Objectives

After working through this topic, you should be able to:

• Explain what the present working directory (pwd) is

• Use the pwd command to display your working directory

• Use cd to navigate to different directories

• Use ls to list directories

• Use the z command to navigate more efficiently between files

Materials

Here is the screencast and these are the slides.

Installation of the z-command

The z-command is a command that allows you to navigate more efficiently. In case the screencast convinced you that installing it is a good idea, here are some instructions.

1. Download the z.sh file and save it as z.sh into the downloads folder.

2. Move the file to /usr/local/bin. If you saved the file in the downloads folder you can open a terminal and run the command:

mv ~/Downloads/z.sh /usr/local/bin

3. Open the file ~/.zshrc (or ~/.bashrc if you use bash) in a text editor and append the line:

. /usr/local/bin/z.sh

4. Close and reopen your terminal. You can test if you have successfully installed the command by typing in z.

Quiz