up

Go up n folders, or to the nearest parent with a name.

Synopsis

up [n | name]

Description

up moves your shell up the folder tree. It saves you typing cd ../../.. and counting the dots.

• up goes up one folder, the same as cd ...
• up 3 goes up three folders.
• up lab goes up to the nearest folder above you named lab.

$ pwd
/home/me/lab/kind/manifests/base
$ up 2
$ pwd
/home/me/lab/kind

up never goes above /. up 20 from /home/me lands in /.

Up to a name

With a name, up walks up from the current folder and stops at the first folder whose own name matches exactly. It only looks at the folders above you, never the one you are in and never the ones beside you.

$ pwd
/home/me/lab/kind/manifests/base
$ up lab
$ pwd
/home/me/lab

When two folders above you have the same name, up stops at the nearer one. When none has it, up prints an error and you stay where you were.

The match is exact and case-sensitive. up Lab does not find lab.

Numbers and names

A word of digits only is a number of levels. Any other word is a name. To go to a parent folder whose name is all digits, such as 2026, use cd with its path. Leading zeros do not matter, so up 03 is up 3.

Why it is a shell function

Every program runs in its own process, and a process can only change its own current folder. A script could work out the folder, but your shell would stay where it was. So up is a shell function that runs inside your shell. It lives in shell/functions.sh, with mkcd.

Turn both on once with:

$ toolbelt shell enable functions

Then open a new terminal, or run exec $SHELL.

Symlinks

up follows the path you see in pwd, the same way cd .. does. When you entered a folder through a symlink, up goes back up through the symlink's side, not through the real folder's parents.

cd keeps the folder you left in OLDPWD, so cd - takes you back to where you were before up.

Options

Pass-through

None. up runs cd.

Needs

bash or zsh. up uses only shell builtins.

Examples

One level

$ up
$ pwd
/home/me/lab/kind/manifests

Several levels

$ up 2
$ pwd
/home/me/lab

Up to a folder by name

$ up lab
$ pwd
/home/me/lab

And back

$ up lab
$ cd -
/home/me/lab/kind/manifests/base

No such parent

$ up nosuch
up: no parent folder named nosuch
$ echo $?
1

Check that it is loaded

$ type up
up is a function

Troubleshooting

up: command not found

The functions are off, or this shell started before you turned them on. Run toolbelt shell enable functions, then open a new terminal.

up: no parent folder named lab

No folder above you has that exact name. Check the spelling and the case with pwd.

up: give a number of 1 or more

up 0 would stay where you are, so it counts as a mistake.

up is already a command or alias on this machine

Another tool or your own ~/.bashrc defines up too, and the one loaded last wins. type up shows which one you have. Load toolbelt later in ~/.bashrc, or remove the other.

Exit status

See also

mkcd, toolbelt, cd(1)