Linux: rename file/dir in it’s current location w/o changing pwd to that location

command-line-interfacelinux

At the command line, lets say my pwd is something like:

/home/whatever

And there is a file in some deep directory that I want to rename. Normally I would do this:

# mv /var/some/deep/folder/structure/fileA /var/some/deep/folder/structure/fileB

What question is, are there any command line tricks to rename a file/dir without having to type out the entire directory structure again? Something like:

# mv /var/some/deep/folder/structure/fileA fileB

The problem with that command is that it moves fileA to your pwd. Obviously I want to keep it in the same location and simply rename it. So as I said, are there any tricks to achieve this without having to type out the entire directory structure again? It's simply a question out of curiosity and laziness.

Best Answer

Depends on your shell. In zsh you can:

mv /var/some/deep/folder/structure/{fileA,fileB}

If you're using bash, consider migrating to zsh - it's a pretty straightforward process and I'm sure you'll love zsh. :)

Edit:

It seems to work in bash, see Lunar_Lamp's comment.

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Bash – Recursive cp copies folder contents instead of folder on OS X

There is a case to be made that this behavior makes more sense (and I believe it's used by rsync, even on GNU/Linux). Consider the following case:

 mydir
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The the semantics of these three specifiers are all different:

 cp -r mydir   dest/   # creates dest/mydir, containing both files
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I believe this is an example of a difference between BSD and GNU. You can install GNU flavored tools using fink (see coreutils package), but these might not preserve all HFS+ metadata, so proceed with caution.

You can intercept the command and strip out the trailing slash. I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader, or other answerers.

You can alter the tab-completion behavior so the slash isn't added in the first place. Add the following to your ~/.tcshrc:

 unset addsuffix

You can achieve a similar effect in bash and misc readline utilities by adding the following to your ~/.inputrc:

 set mark-directories off

Debian – PHP from command line…path problems

Go to http://www.php.net/manual/en/features.commandline.php and read the bulletpoint/info that says "The CLI SAPI does not change the current directory to the directory of the executed script!" This is probably why you're getting the error.

It should work if you make cron cd into your services directory before it runs the app like this:

01 * * * * myuser cd /var/www/apps/myapp/services; /usr/bin/php /var/www/apps/myapp/services/myservice.php

Best Answer

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Bash – Recursive cp copies folder contents instead of folder on OS X

Debian – PHP from command line…path problems

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