Linux Command: cd (change working directory)

Use “cd” to change the working directory.

Go to Specific Directory

If we want to go to “/home” directory then we can use-

cd /home

Go to Root Directory

Move to the root directory which is denoted by “/”-

# Go to root directory of the file system

$ cd /

$ pwd

/

Go to Home Directory

If you want to go to the home directory of the current user, then use the tilde sign(~) to denote the current user’s home-

$ cd ~

$ pwd

/home/bigboxcode

Or just using “cd” will take you to the home directory-

$ cd

$ pwd

/home/bigboxcode

Go to Previous Location

Use a dash (-) to go to the previously accessed location-

# Go to /home directory
$ cd /home

# Go to /var/log
$ cd /var/log

# Go to previous directory
# which is /home
$ cd -
/home

# Go to previous directory
# which is /var/log
$ cd -
/var/log

# Go to previous directory again
# which is /home
$ cd -
/home

# Go to previous directory again
# which is /var/log
$ cd -
/var/log

Go Relative to Current Directory

If we want to refer to some directory relative to the current directory, then we can use dot(.) to denote the current directory.

Like, if we want to go to the “test” directory which is in the current working directory then we can do the following

$ cd ./test

# or

$ cd test

Go to Absolute Path

Use the absolute path from the root directory to go to some specific location-

$ cd /home/bigboxcode/www

$ cd /var/log

$ cd /etc/nginx

Go to Parent Directory

If we want to go back to the parent directory then we can use two dots(..) to denote the parent directory, like below-

$ cd ..

Go to Multiple Steps back

Say we want to go to some directory which are 2 directories(parent) back and then the name of the directory is “my_project”, then we can use-

# Go to directory which is 2 step back and name is "my_Project"

$ cd ../../my_project