GD(1)

NAME
gd - alias: quickly change to another directory

SYNOPSIS
gd [ -r ] [ --rebuild ] [ directory ]

DESCRIPTION
gd makes it possible to move to another directory without entering more of it's name than the start of the last path-element. It keeps a file containing the directory structure of and in the home directory of each user. Note: gd is supposed to be a shell-alias or -function. See gdprog(1) for installation instructions. The program will first check if a normal chdir to the given directory will work. If not, it searches the (home-) directory tree top to bottom, left to right (in an alphabetic manner) for a match. The search starts with the directory after the current, and wraps around to the start when the end is reached. To save some typing, a match is defined to be a directory who's `last name' starts with the name given. Scanning the directory structure takes some time, so instead of doing that, gd keeps the structure in a file. This file needs to be updated whenever directories are added or removed. If, whenever gd is started, the current directory (below home) is not in the file, a rescan will be performed automatically. However, if the directory structure is changed without gd's knowing, you may have to rebuild the file using the -r option. This is the case if gd is unable to find an existing directory, or if it tries to move to a location that no longer exists.

OPTIONS

-r, --rebuild
    Rebuild the directory structure file. Use this when gd complains about unknown directories, or to update the file when directories have been added or removed.

FILES
The directory structure is stored in .gdinfo in the user's home-directory.

ENVIRONMENT
The environment variable HOME is used to determine the homedirectory of the current user.

SEE ALSO
gdprog(1)

HISTORY
gd appeared in 1990 as an MS-DOS program (by the same author).

AUTHOR
This perl-program was written from scratch in 1994 by Sverre H. Huseby, Norway (sverrehu@ifi.uio.no)