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Subject: RE: CD doesn't work in script
Date: Thu, 3 May 2007 12:31:19 -0400
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From: "Buchbinder, Barry \(NIH/NIAID\) [E]" <BBuchbinder AT niaid DOT nih DOT gov>
To: "SCHLING" <schling AT mail DOT telepac DOT pt>, <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
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SCHLING wrote on Thursday, May 03, 2007 12:18 PM:
> 
> I have successfully installed Cygwin on XP SP2, and would like to run
> a script which includes a change directory command (cd \etc.) 
> 
> All the other lines of the script work except the one with cd. The
> same line works when input by hand. 
> 
> Searching on the net I found that line endings could be critical (Lf
> instead of CrLf) and ran the script through d2u. Still no success. 
> 
> Curiously, if the script tries a cd with a non-existing directory, I
> get a warning. Otherwise, the script runs without any problems, but
> the active directory does not change.  
> 
> Don't know what to do next...
> 
> Any help appreciated
> 
> Robert

A script that starts with a #!/bin/sh or the like runs in a sub-shell,
i.e., its own process.  (I'm assuming that what you are doing.)  A "cd"
in the script changes the working directory of the sub-shell, not its
parent, the shell from which the sub-shell was launched.  When the
script exits, one finds oneself in the original directory because the
command (parent) shell has not done a "cd".

What it seems you want to do is to *source* the script.  In bash you can
do it at least two ways:
	$ . script
	$ source script

For convenience, you can set up a alias so that you don't have to
remember to type "." or "source".
	alias script='. /path/script'
Y do not need to include the path if the names of the alias and script
are different.

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