Alias cd and ls with support for spaces and arguments

Question

So I started with this discussion, and it basically does exactly what I want.

However, the solution to preserve directory whitespace using quotes fails when using arguments, e.g. cd -P dir. Any ideas for preserving whitespace and allowing for option flags?

This is the function I'm currently using.

function cd {
    new_directory="$*";
    if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then 
        new_directory=${HOME};
    fi;
    builtin cd "${new_directory}" && ls;
}

For example, with the above, cd -P My\ Documents/ becomes cd "-P My Documents" which obviously fails.

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 20 '13 at 22:58

5

When you write $*, you've lost: this erases the distinction between spaces in an argument and spaces to separate arguments. Use "$@" instead, which expands to one word per argument.

function cd {
  builtin cd "$@" && ls
}

answered Aug 20 '13 at 22:58

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'

60,593

Same issue. For example, from 'cd My\ Documents/', $* and $@ produce 'My Documents/', losing the backslash that's needed if you don't have quotes. – Jon Aug 20 '13 at 23:54
"$@". It looks like you left out the quotes. – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Aug 20 '13 at 23:55
Ah, you're right, that works perfectly. Thank you very much. – Jon Aug 21 '13 at 00:14

Alias cd and ls with support for spaces and arguments

1 Answers1