The dirs command, combined with pushd and popd, is very effective for tracking users' directory changes. Suppose you have to make some changes to the files present in the following directories. Instead of noting down the directories on paper, do the following:

$ pushd /home/sangeeth/soft/release2/src/
$ pushd /home/sangeeth/soft/release2/src/show/
$ pushd /home/sangeeth/soft/release2/doc/

To list all the directories, do the following:

$ dirs -l -p -d

The above command removes the topmost directory entry (/home/sangeeth/soft/release2/src/) and performs a cd to the new top directory, which in my case, will be the second directory (/home/sangeeth/soft/release2/src/show/).

Alternatively, one can pop a particular directory from the list of directories by giving the directory ID (the ID is displayed beside a directory when using dirs -l -p -d) to the popd command:

$ popd +1

More options available for using the above commands can be found by viewing the man pages.

This Tech Tip was brought to us by Sangeeth in Bangalore, India. Thanks, Sangeeth!

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