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This is macOS specific, but seems too unixy to go in the Ask Different community.

In Terminal, I can pwd, copy the result, and type open and paste the result and the folder will open in the Finder, but

pwd | open

prints the help documentation for open. Why doesn't piping work but pasting does?

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3
  • that will only work if open expects you to type the directory name after you press enter.
    – Jasen
    Commented Jul 23, 2016 at 4:32
  • 9
    Also, this should (not a mac user) work: open . (for the current directory)
    – user137998
    Commented Jul 23, 2016 at 10:44
  • @BharadwajRaju open . works and does seem the easiest. ty.
    – Chuck
    Commented Jul 23, 2016 at 13:00

5 Answers 5

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28

The open utility on macOS does not read from standard input, but take its arguments from the command line.

To open the current working directory, you would have to say

$ open "$( pwd )"

or

$ open "$PWD"

or simply

$ open .

as pointed out in the comments below.

With the -f flag, open can be made to read from standard input, but only to open whatever it receives in the default text editor.

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6
  • 1
    If the shell is (t)csh, you'd want open $cwd:q instead. And open (pwd) /open $PWD if it's fish
    – Stéphane Chazelas
    Commented Jul 23, 2016 at 7:46
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    @StéphaneChazelas I believe the default shell on Darwin is bash, but it's always good to see solutions for other shells too.
    – Kusalananda ♦
    Commented Jul 23, 2016 at 7:55
  • For completeness, with rc, es, akanga shells: open `pwd or open `{pwd}
    – Stéphane Chazelas
    Commented Jul 23, 2016 at 10:19
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    Or you can use the syntax- open . for the current working directory or the parent directory open .. or up two directories open ../.. and so forth.
    – fd0
    Commented Jul 23, 2016 at 10:46
  • @StéphaneChazelas: Why would $cwd:q be preferable to "$cwd" in a csh-related shell?
    – G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica'
    Commented Jul 24, 2016 at 2:18
19

I don't have a Mac so I can't test it, but the solution should be something like:

open "`pwd`"

Not all programs take their input from stdin which would be necessary for the pipe to work.

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10
  • 1
    The double quotes are unnecessary.
    – tbodt
    Commented Jul 23, 2016 at 18:50
  • 4
    @tbodt: Try it in /var/tbodt's files.
    – Julie Pelletier
    Commented Jul 23, 2016 at 19:00
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    @tbodt: How would any shell know if the space used is to separate arguments or part of an argument?
    – Julie Pelletier
    Commented Jul 23, 2016 at 19:06
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    @jamesdlin: Go complain on the bash development project, but don't forget to also go bash all older shells and most newer shells while you're at it. Over and out!
    – Julie Pelletier
    Commented Jul 23, 2016 at 19:34
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    @JuliePelletier I'm just saying that you claim it's impossible for any shell, but shells such as fish behave exactly as tbodt describes.
    – jamesdlin
    Commented Jul 23, 2016 at 19:35
10 
pwd | xargs open

xargs shoves its standart input into the arguments of its first argument.

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2
  • 2
    That's only if the current working directory path doesn't contain blanks or newline or single quotes or double quotes or backslashes.
    – Stéphane Chazelas
    Commented Jul 24, 2016 at 4:06
  • pwd | xargs -d '\n' open
    – belkka
    Commented Mar 17, 2019 at 4:23
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The other answers are totally correct. If you want an easy shorthand, you can do as @fd0 proposed, and just use

open .

to open the current directory. The current directory is named . (a single dot) in Unix, the parent directory .. (two dots).

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0

You can use a pipeline with -f to open the content of the previous command in a Text Editor. This just applies for text editors. For other apps you'll need to use the suggestion in the other questions.

For example:

ls | open -f

This would open your default text editor with the ls output content.

You can also specify the text editor to use using -a:

ls | open -a 'Atom' -f

This would open Atom with the ls output content.

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