Linux: Can I build a shortcut for a complex cd command without resorting to a shell script?

Question

On a server I work on, I always have to work in a directory, let's call it /foo/bar. In that directory is a list of site directories. Inside each of those directories is a directory for each developer. So, the tree looks like this:

/foo/bar/
         site1/
               userA/
               userB/
               userC/
         site2/
               userA/
               userB/
               userC/
         site3/
               userA/
         ...

I set up an alias for the root directory in my .bash_profile, fb=/foo/bar, so my workflow looks like this:

$ cd $fb
$ cd site2
$ cd userA

The first and third lines never change--I'm always going to go to the userA directory of whatever site directory I change to.

My question: Is there a clever way I can compress this into a single command that I just pass the "site2" argument without having to build this into a shell script? Or is the shell script the only way?

Answer 1

You could do something with a bash function

site() {
    cd /foo/bar/site${1}/userA
}

Put that in your .bashrc and then call it like

site 2

it will take you to /foo/bar/site2/userA

Answer 2

Use a bash function like this.

function myCD() {
   local site
   local user
   case $# in
     0)  read -p site: site
         read -p user: user
         ;;
     1|2)
        site=${1}
        user=${2:-userA}
        ;;
    *)
       echo "don't accept more as 2 arguments" >&2
       return 1
       ;;
   esac
   cd ${fb}/${site}/${user}
}

Answer 3

Just link them into your home directory:

ln -s /foo/bar/site{$1}/userA ~/workspace/$1

That way, they will all appear local to you. No need to faff about until a new site is added.

Or, do what I do: Mount them onto my local workstation via SSH directly into my home-dir.. IDE's and whatnot being what they are, it is generally more efficient.

mkdir ~/workspace/site1
sshfs -o idmap=user $USER@server:/foo/bar/baz/site1/userA ~/workspace/site1

To unmount,

fusermount -u ~/workspace/site1

From ubuntu help

Pop that into your login script, bingo, all your work-base are belong to us!

Answer 4

You could probably just use an alias like

alias site2="cd /foo/bar/site2/userA"

You also might want to look into the CDPATH environment variable. See the man page for your shell.