Small, Sharp Software Tools

Switching Between Directories

In the last few examples, you moved between the /var and /usr/bin directories by specifying either relative or absolute paths. Switching back and forth between two directories is something you’ll do more often than you’d think. This has a nice shortcut command. Whenever you change to a new working directory, your shell stores the previous directory.

To switch back to the previous directory, use cd -. This command retrieves the value of the previous directory and uses it to change the directory.

Try this exercise out. First, go to your home directory. Then, navigate to the /var directory. Use cd - to switch back and forth between the two:

$ cd
$ cd /var
$ cd -
/home/brian
$ cd -