project change directory – Øyvind Stegard

I generally keep my development projects under a common directory like ~/dev/ or ~/projects/. Here is a simple bash shell script function which I use to quickly jump into and between projects on the command line. It includes auto completion, which is a pretty important part of its usefulness. You can put in your ~/.bashrc file and adapt the PROJECTS_PATH variable to suit your own needs.

PROJECTS_PATH=~/dev
pcd() {
    if [ "$1" = .. ]; then
        local reporoot=$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null)
        [ -d "$reporoot" ] && cd "$reporoot" || cd ..
    else
        cd "$PROJECTS_PATH"
        [ -d "$1" ] && cd "$1"
        [ -d "$2" ] && cd "$2"
    fi
}
_pcdcomp() {
    local IFS=$'\n'
    if [ "$COMP_CWORD" -eq 1 ]; then
        COMPREPLY=($(cd "$PROJECTS_PATH" && compgen -d "${COMP_WORDS[1]}"))
    elif [ "$COMP_CWORD" -eq 2 ]; then
        COMPREPLY=($(cd "$PROJECTS_PATH"/"${COMP_WORDS[1]}" 2>/dev/null && compgen -d "${COMP_WORDS[2]}"))
    else
        COMPREPLY=()
    fi
}
complete -o filenames -F _pcdcomp pcd

After loading the code, type pcd and hit TAB to see completion of all sub directories. Hit ENTER to jump to a project. It will also complete one level into a single project as second argument. Lastly pcd .. will jump up to the project root directory, if inside a git repository.