Bookmark your Directories: Introducing “go”

Not all directories are created equal. When you work on a specific machine, there are directories where you are bound to spend more time than others. The same thing happens on the web, there are pages you will want to visit more often than others. Thankfully, this problem has already been solved with bookmarks. I’m just bringing bookmarks to bash.

For years, I’ve had different systems to allow me to move around faster around my often-used directories. I’ve tried soft links, aliases, and a few other tools. I’m not inventing anything new, I’m just making it more lightweight.

Here’s a screenshot that will explain how “go” works.

You just have to create a flat file named “.gorc” and place it in your home directory. It should contain one path per line, like this:

/home/jonathan/etc
/home/jonathan/media/working
/home/jonathan/lang/ruby/rails
/home/jonathan/lang/erlang/tests/programming_erlang
/home/jonathan/personal/log
/home/jonathan/notes/technical

If you need to add/edit/remove paths, just fire up your favorite text editor. You can also append easily to it with.

echo $PWD >> ~/.gorc

Finally, here’s the source code.

function go() {
  if [ ! -f $HOME/.gorc ]; then
    echo "$HOME/.gorc does not exist..."
    return 1
  fi

  if [ -n "$1" ]; then
    local dest=`cat $HOME/.gorc | sed -n $1p`
  else
    local places=`cat $HOME/.gorc`
    local dest=`pick_from_list $places`
  fi

  [ -n "$dest" ] && cd $dest
}

function print_list() {
  local i item

  for item in "$@"; do
    ((i++))
    echo "$i. $item" >&2
  done
}

function pick_from_list() {
  print_list "$@"

  local n
  read -p "${PROMPT-">"} " n
  ((n--)) # zero-based index shift

  if ((n < 0 || n >= $#)); then
    return 1
  fi

  shift $n

  echo $1
}

Just make sure you “source” the file in your .bashrc and you’re good to go.