For a homework assignment I am trying to make a script that will give the user a list of all his/her directories and allow them to select wich directory they would like to use as the working directory. I have a few extra lines to help me debug and it looks like things are how they need to be to select the directory but you can see in my output that I am still getting the no such file error.

# bin/bash
# Directory list test script

# First we go to users home directory
cd

# now we make a select menu loop that will make a list of directories into the menu this will prevent the user from trying to enter in a directory location that is not a directory

select filename in `ls -R | grep ./ | tr "." " " | tr : " "`
do echo "$filename";pwd;cd;cd "~$filename"
break
done
~

[ctrimble@rc02uxas01 ctrimble]$ bash dirtree
1) /backups 3) /CS140U/project 5) /CS140U/TMPDIR 7) /mail
2) /CS140U 4) /CS140U/TMP 6) /Desktop 8) /Mail
#? 1
/backups
/home/stu/ctrimble
dirtree: cd: ~/backups: No such file or directory
[ctrimble@rc02uxas01 ctrimble]$

Where and why is this not working correctly?

Thanks,
Chris

# bin/bash
# First we go to users home directory
cd
# `ls -R | grep ./ | tr "." " " | tr : " "`
# Try this command on it's own. This is your prob.

select filename in `ls -l | grep ^d | awk {'print $8'}`
do echo "$filename";cd "$filename";pwd;
break
done

But don't copy paste. Understand what went wrong.

micxz thanks for your response. I am trying to understand why my ls -R line isn't working.

I am not very familiar with the awk utility in bash and when I tried your script i got an error saying print is not something bash recognizes.

In my script it seems as though the directory variable is stored correctly. When I get the echo "$filename" result it is storing the path for the directory just fine. I will annotate the output that I recieved from my script and if you or anyone else can give me specifics on how it failed it would teach me whats wrong with this beast.

[ctrimble@rc02uxas01 ctrimble]$ pwd <===#this is to show where I start out at before I run my script
/home/stu/ctrimble
[ctrimble@rc02uxas01 ctrimble]$ bash dirtree <====now I run the script and it gives a recursive list of all directories in my user directory
1) /backups 3) /CS140U/project 5) /CS140U/TMPDIR 7) /mail
2) /CS140U 4) /CS140U/TMP 6) /Desktop 8) /Mail
#? 1
/backups <===shows the value of the variable that I am telling bash to change to this looks okay.
/home/stu/ctrimble <=====shows the working directory so I know i'm in my home directory and the ~/ expansion should get me where I want.
dirtree: cd: ~/backups: No such file or directory <===error message saying that the file or directory does not exist
[ctrimble@rc02uxas01 ctrimble]$ cd ~/backups <====I try it manually and it works
[ctrimble@rc02uxas01 backups]$ pwd <=====to show where i should be if my script was working correctly
/home/stu/ctrimble/backups
[ctrimble@rc02uxas01 backups]$

so if the script is entering the command line just as i did manually why does it not work? This is driving me crazy. Even the following doesn't work for some reason:

echo "please enter a directory name: "
read directory

echo $directory
cd $directory

Please help a linux newb.

Chris

Post your script.

Remember you won't end up with your current terminal/shell in the directory you choose. In other words, just typing `cd backups` is different than making a one line script doing the same. When you run a script it's creates a new process. In this process for example when you execute 'cd backups' your current working directory is "backups" after the 'exit' part your back to your first shell.

micxz@neptune:~> pwd
/home/micxz
micxz@neptune:~> cat test
#!/bin/bash
cd Desktop;
pwd;
exit;
micxz@neptune:~> ./test
/home/micxz/Desktop
micxz@neptune:~> pwd
/home/micxz

Thanks micxz,

I had just figured that out (pretty much on accident) and was going to post my findings here.

Like Micxz says the script forks a new process once it gets the green light to start.

Just to recap here is the heart of my script:

select filename in `ls -R | grep ./ | tr "." " " | tr : " "`
do echo "$filename";pwd;cd;cd "~$filename"
break
done

So when I was getting this error:
dirtree: cd: ~/backups: No such file or directory

I think one of the reasons is because of how the ~/ is parsed out and expanded there must have been something goofy I was missing there. Also it might be that bash was looking for a directory called backups within the script process. ie script started a new quasi working directory called "dirtree" (name of the script) within the forked process.

if I changed the script to this:

select filename in `ls -R | grep ./ | tr "." " " | tr : " "`
do echo "$filename";pwd;cd;cd "$HOME$filename"
break
done

The script will change the working directory as it should. This can be seen if you add a pwd line before the break

However, then the script is finished and it exits out to the bash prompt again.

when it exits it takes me back to the directory I was in when I executed the script.

Now the question is how do i make it retain the working directory once it exits the script?

Thanks again for your help micxz

Chris

I don't think this is possible. Like I said it is a seperate process.