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I'm running CentOS 7, but hoping there is a general Linux way of doing this.

So you can cd back and forth between the previous and current directory with this: 

cd -

Is there I way can cd back multiple directories? So I keep going back previous directories instead of just the last one?

Does Linux or bash track your navigation history at all?

Jakuje
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user1028270
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  • you could use bash history by pressing Ctrl+r, typing cd and repeated Ctrl+r to get location you want.. or add "\e[A": history-search-backward to ~/.inputrc and then you could type cd followed by repeated up arrow to get location you want – Sundeep Jun 04 '16 at 15:15
  • See also http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/269272/117549 – Jeff Schaller Jun 04 '16 at 16:50
  • If the Linux did that, you would have a real bad memory leak. Linux is a kernel it must not do these things. It must only make it possible for processes to do it. (it also does not do the back button in the web-browser). bash is the file browser, so it will do it. – ctrl-alt-delor Jun 04 '16 at 21:09

1 Answers1

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Yes and No.

If you use normal cd, it remembers only one previous location (in variable $OLDPWD), which is accessible using the mentioned cd -.

But you can go around using pushd path and popd, which keeps stack of previous locations.

Jakuje
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  • neat so I guess I could alias cd to pushd and cd - to popd. Would that screw anything up? – user1028270 Jun 04 '16 at 15:13
  • First try that what does it do and what is in the manual page (in man bash). I would not use that for all the cd, but it is an option if you need it (you need to know it before you need it :)) – Jakuje Jun 04 '16 at 15:16