• cd-extras
• Navigation helper commands
  • Parameters
  • Output
  • Completions
  • Listing available navigation targets
• cd enhancements
  • Path shortening
  • Multi-dot cd
  • No argument cd
  • Two argument cd
• Enhanced completion for cd and others
  • Single and double periods
  • Multi-dot completions
  • Variable based completions
  • Extending completion to other commands
  • Colourised completions
• AUTO CD
  • Tilde
  • Multi-dot
• CD PATH
• CDABLE VARS
• Additional helpers
  • Get-Up gup
  • Get-Stack dirs
  • Clear-Stack dirsc
  • Expand-Path xpa
• Compatibility
  • OS X & Linux
  • Alternative providers
• Install
• Configure
  • cd-extras options
  • Navigation helper key handlers
  • Using a different alias

Quickly navigate backwards, forwards, upwards or between two directories

cd-extras provides the following navigation helpers and corresponding aliases (shown in parens):

• Undo-Location, (cd- or ~)
• Redo-Location, (cd+ or ~~)
• Step-Up, (upor ..)
• Step-Between, (cdb)

[C:/Windows/System32]> up # or ..
[C:/Windows]> cd- # or ~
[C:/Windows/System32]> cd+ # or ~~
[C:/Windows]> █

👉 That's cd- and cd+, without a space. cd - and cd + (with a space) also work but you won't get auto-completions.

Repeated uses of cd- keep moving backwards towards the beginning of the stack rather than toggling between the two most recent directories as in vanilla bash. Use Step-Between (cdb) if you want to toggle between directories.

[C:/Windows/System32]> cd ..
[C:/Windows]> cd ..
[C:/]> cd-
[C:/Windows]> cd-
[C:/Windows/System32]> cd+
[C:/Windows]> cd+
[C:/]> cdb
[C:/Windows]> cdb
[C:/]> █

up, cd+ and cd- each take a single optional argument: either a number of steps, n...

[C:/Windows/System32]> .. 2 # or `up 2`
[C:/]> cd temp
[C:/temp]> cd- 2 # `cd -2`, `~ 2` or just `~2` also work
[C:/Windows/System32]> cd+ 2
[C:/temp]> █

...or a string, NamePart, used to select the nearest matching directory from the available locations. Given a NamePart, cd-extras will search from the current location for directories whose leaf name contains the given string⁽¹⁾. If none is found then it will attempt to find a match within the full path of each candidate directory⁽²⁾.

[C:/Windows]> cd system32
[C:/Windows/System32]> cd drivers
[C:/Windows/System32/drivers]> cd- win # [ex. 1] by leaf name
[C:/Windows/]> cd+ 32/dr # [ex. 2] by full name
[C:/Windows/System32/drivers]> up win # by leaf name again
[C:/Windows]> █

Each helper includes a -PassThru switch to return a PathInfo value in case you need a reference to the resulting directory. The value will be $null if the action wasn't completed. (For example, if there was nothing in the stack or you attempted to navigate up from the root.)

[C:/Windows/System32]> up -PassThru

Path
----
C:\Windows

[C:/Windows]> cd- -PassThru

Path
----
C:\Windows\System32

[C:/Windows/System32]> █

Auto-completions are provided for each of cd-, cd+, and up.

Assuming the PSReadLine MenuComplete function is bound to tab...

[C:]> Get-PSReadLineKeyHandler -Bound | Where Function -eq MenuComplete

Completion functions
====================

Key           Function     Description
---           --------     -----------
Tab           MenuComplete Complete the input if there is a single completion ...
...

...then tabbing (⇥) through any of the navigation helpers will display a menu based completion.

[C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc]> up ⇥⇥
[C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc]> up 2

1. drivers  2. System32  3. Windows  4. C:\
            ────────────

C:\Windows\System32

The IndexedCompletion option controls how completion text is displayed. When IndexedCompletion is on and more than one completion is available, the completions offered are the indices of each corresponding directory; the directory name is displayed in the menu below. The full directory path is given in the tooltip if you have PSReadLine tooltips enabled.

cd-extras detects PSReadLine options in order to set IndexedCompletion at startup. If the PSReadLine MenuComplete option is bound to at least one key combination then IndexedCompletion is turned on by default. You can turn it off if you prefer.

[C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc]> setocd IndexedCompletion 0
[C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc]> up ⇥⇥
[C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc]> up C:\Windows\System32 <--- full path shown

1. drivers  2. System32  3. Windows  4. C:\
            ────────────

C:\Windows\System32

It's also possible to tab-complete cd-, cd+ and up using a partial directory name (i.e. the NamePart parameter).

[~/projects/PowerShell/src/Modules/Shared]> up pr⇥
[~/projects/PowerShell/src/Modules/Shared]> up '~\projects'
[~/projects]> █

As an alternative to menu completion you retrieve a list of available targets with:

• Get-Stack -Undo (dirs -u)
• Get-Stack -Redo (dirs -r)
• Get-Ancestors (xup)

[C:/Windows/System32/drivers]> Get-Ancestors # xup

n Name        Path
- ----        ----
1 System32    C:\Windows\System32
2 Windows     C:\Windows
3 C:\         C:\

[C:/Windows/System32/drivers]> up 2
[C:/Windows]> up 1
[C:/]> dirs -u # dirs -v also works

n Name        Path
- ----        ----
1 Windows     C:\Windows
2 drivers     C:\Windows\System32\drivers

[C:/]> cd- 2
[C:/Windows/System32/drivers]> █

Shortcuts and tab completions for the cd command

cd-extras provides a proxy to Set-Location - called Set-LocationEx - and aliases it to cd by default, giving it several new abilities:

• Path shortening
• Multi-dot cd
• No argument cd
• Two argument cd
• Enhanced tab completions

If an unambiguous match is available then cd can change directory using an abbreviated path. This effectively changes a path given as, p into p* or ~/pr/pow/src into ~/pr*/pow*/src*. If you're not sure whether an unambiguous match is available then just hit tab to pick from a list of potential matches instead.

[~]> cd pr
[~/projects]> cd cd-e
[~/projects/cd-extras]> cd ~
[~]> cd pr/cd
[~/projects/cd-extras]> █

Word delimiters (., _, - by default) are expanded around so a segment containing .sdk is expanded into *.sdk*.

[~]> cd proj/pow/s/.sdk
[~/projects/powershell/src/Microsoft.PowerShell.SDK]> █

👉 Powershell interprets a hyphen at the start of an argument as a parameter name. So while you can do this...

[~/projects/powershell]> cd src/-unix
[~/projects/PowerShell/src/powershell-unix]> █

... you need to escape this:

[~/projects/powershell/src]> cd -unix
Set-LocationEx: A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name 'unix'.

[~/projects/powershell/src]> cd `-unix # backtick escapes the hypen
[~/projects/PowerShell/src/powershell-unix]> █

Pairs of periods are expanded between so, for example, a segment containing s..32 is expanded into s*32.

[~]> cd /w/s..32/d/et
[C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc]> █

Directories in CD_PATH will be also be shortened.

[C:/]> setocd CD_PATH ~/projects
[C:/]> cd p..shell
[~/projects/PowerShell/]> █

AUTO_CD uses the same expansion algorithm when enabled.

[~]> $cde.AUTO_CD
True

[~]> /w/s/d/et
[C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc]> ~/pr/pow/src
[~/projects/PowerShell/src]> .sdk
[~/projects/PowerShell/src/Microsoft.PowerShell.SDK]> █

In the same way that you can navigate up one level with cd .., Set-LocationEx supports navigating multiple levels by adding additional dots. AUTO_CD works the same way if enabled.

[C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc]> cd ... # same as `up 2` or `.. 2`
[C:/Windows/System32]> cd-
[C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc>] cd .... # same as `up 3` or `.. 3`
[C:/Windows]> █

If the NOARG_CD option is defined then cd without arguments navigates into that directory (~ by default). This overrides the out of the box behaviour on PowerShell>=6.0, where no-arg cd always navigates to ~ and PowerShell < 6.0, where no-argument cd does nothing at all.

[~/projects/powershell]> cd
[~]> setocd NOARG_CD /
[~]> cd
[C:/]>

Replaces all instances of the first argument in the current path with the second argument, changing to the resulting directory if it exists, using the Switch-LocationPart function.

You can also use the alias cd: or the explicit ReplaceWith parameter of Set-LocationEx.

[~/Modules/Unix/Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility]> cd unix shared
[~/Modules/Shared/Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility]> cd: -Replace shared -With unix
[~/Modules/Unix/Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility]> cd unix -ReplaceWith shared
[~/Modules/Shared/Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility]> █

cd-extras provides enhanced completion for cd, pushd, ls, Get-Item and Invoke-Item by default, expanding all path segments in one go so that you don't have to individually tab (⇥) through each one. The path shortening logic is provided by Expand-Path and works as described above.

[~]> cd /w/s/dr⇥⇥
[~]> cd C:\Windows\System32\DriverState\

drivers   DriverState   DriverStore
          ───────────

C:\Windows\System32\DriverState

Paths within $cde.CD_PATH are included in the completion results.

[~]> $cde.CD_PATH += '~\Documents\'
[~]> cd win/mod⇥
[~]> ~\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\█

👉 The total number of completions offered is limited by the MaxCompletions option (or calculated dynamically to fit the screen if MaxCompletions is falsy). Although the completions are sorted by type (folders first) and then by name for ease of reading, that sort is applied after the limit has been applied to the original results. Those results are sorted breadth first for responsiveness.

A console beep is emitted in cases where the available results have been truncated.

Word delimiters (., _, - by default) are expanded around so, for example, a segment containing .sdk is expanded into *.sdk*.

[~]> cd proj/pow/s/.sdk⇥
[~]> cd ~\projects\powershell\src\Microsoft.PowerShell.SDK\█

or

[~]> ls pr/pow/t/ins.sh⇥
[~]> ls ~\projects\powershell\tools\install-powershell.sh
[~]> ls ~\projects\powershell\tools\install-powershell.sh | cat
#!/bin/bash
...

[~]>

A double-dot (..) token is expanded inside, so s..32 becomes s*32.

[~]> ls /w/s..32⇥
[~]> ls C:\Windows\System32\█

The multi-dot syntax provides tab completion into ancestor directories.

[~/projects/powershell/docs/git]> cd ...⇥
[~/projects/powershell/docs/git]> cd ~\projects\powershell\█

[C:/projects/powershell/docs/git]> cd .../⇥

.git     .vscode    demos    docs   test
─────
.github    assets   docker   src    tools

~\projects\powershell\.git

When CDABLE_VARS is enabled, completions are available for the names of variables that contain file paths. This can be combined with the -Export option of Get-Ancestors (xup), which recursively exports each parent directory's path into a global variable with a corresponding name.

[C:/projects/powershell/src/Modules/Unix]> xup -Export -ExcludeRoot

n Name        Path
- ----        ----
1 Modules     C:\projects\powershell\src\Modules
2 src         C:\projects\powershell\src
3 powershell  C:\projects\powershell
4 projects    C:\projects

[C:/projects/powershell/src/Modules/Unix]> up pow
[C:/projects/powershell]> cd mod⇥
[C:/projects/powershell]> cd .\src\modules\

You can extend the list of commands that participate in enhanced completion for either directories or files, or for both files and directories, using the DirCompletions FileCompletions and PathCompletions options respectively.

(FileCompletions is the least useful of the three since you can't tab through intermediate directories to get to the file you're looking for.)

[~]> setocd DirCompletions mkdir
[~]> mkdir ~/pow/src⇥
[~]> mkdir ~\powershell\src\█
[~]> setocd PathCompletions Copy-Item
[~]> cp /t/⇥
[~]> cp C:\temp\subdir\█
subdir  txtFile.txt  txtFile2.txt
──────

C:\temp\subdir

In each case, completions work against the target's Path parameter; if you want enhanced completion for a native executable or for a cmdlet without a Path parameter then you'll need to provide a wrapper. Either the wrapper or the target itself should handle expanding ~ where necessary.

[~]> function Invoke-VSCode($path) { &code (rvpa $path) }
[~]> setocd PathCompletions Invoke-VSCode
[~]> Set-Alias co Invoke-VSCode
[~]> co ~/pr/po⇥
[~]> co ~\projects\powershell\█

An alternative to registering a bunch of aliases is to create a tiny wrapper to pipe input from ls, gi or xpa.

[~]> function to($target) { &$target $input }
[~]> xpa ~/pr/po/r.md⇥
[~]> xpa ~/projects/powershell/readme.md | to bat

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
File: C:\Users\Nick\projects\PowerShell\README.md
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
1 | ...
2 | ...

👉 You can skip tab completion altogether and use Expand-Path directly if you know exactly what you're looking for.

[~]> xpa ~/pr/po/r.md | to bat

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
File: C:\Users\Nick\projects\PowerShell\README.md
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
1 | ...
2 | ...

The ColorCompletion option enables colourisation of completions in the filesystem provider via DirColors or via your own global Format-ColorizedFilename function of type [System.IO.FileSystemInfo] -> [String].

👉 ColorCompletion is off by default. Enable it on with setocd ColorCompletion.

Change directory without typing cd

[~]> projects
[~/projects]> cd-extras
[~/projects/cd-extras]> /
[C:/]> █

As with the enhanced cd command, abbreviated paths and multi-dot syntax are supported.

[~]> pr
[~/projects]> cd-e
[~/projects/cd-extras]> cd
[~]> pr/cd
[~/projects/cd-extras]> █

AUTO_CD supports a shorthand syntax for cd- using tilde (~). You can use this with or without a space between tilde and the number, although tab completion only works after a space (~ ⇥).

[C:/Windows/System32]> /
[C:/]> temp
[C:/temp]> dirs -u

n Name      Path
- ----      ----
0 temp      C:\temp
1 C:\       C:\
2 System32  C:\Windows\System32

[C:/temp]> ~2 # or ~ 2
[C:/Windows/System32]> ~~2 # or ~~ 2
[C:/temp]> █

Multi-dot syntax works with AUTO_CD as an alternative to up [n].

[C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc]> ... # same as `up 2` or `.. 2`
[C:/Windows/System32]> cd-
[C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc>] .... # same as `up 3` or `.. 3`
[C:/Windows]>  █

Additional base directories for the cd command

[~]> setocd CD_PATH ~/documents
[~]> # or $cde.CD_PATH = ,'~/documents'
[~]> cd WindowsPowerShell
[~/documents/WindowsPowerShell]> █

Tab-completion, path shortening and Expand-Path work with CD_PATH directories.

CD_PATHs are not searched when an absolute or relative path is given.

[~]> setocd CD_PATH ~/documents
[~]> cd ./WindowsPowerShell
Set-Location : Cannot find path '~\WindowsPowerShell'...

👉 Unlike bash, the current directory is always included when a relative path is used. If a child with the same name exists in both the current directory and a CD_PATH directory then cd will prefer the former.

[~]> mkdir -f child, someDir/child
[~]> resolve-path someDir | setocd CD_PATH
[~]> cd child
[~/child]> cd child
[~/someDir/child]> █

👉 The value of CD_PATH is an array, not a delimited string as it is in bash.

[~]> setocd CD_PATH ~/Documents/, ~/Downloads
[~]> $cde.CD_PATH
~/Documents
~/Downloads

cd into variables without the $ and enable tab completion into child directories

Given a variable containing a folder path (configured in your $PROFILE, perhaps, or by invoking Get-Ancestors -Export), you can cd into it using the variable name.

👉 CDABLE_VARS is off by default; enable it with, setocd CDABLE_VARS.

[~/projects/powershell]> setocd CDABLE_VARS
[~/projects/powershell]> $bk1 = $pwd
[~/projects/powershell]> cd
[~]> cd bk1
[~/projects/powershell]> █

It works with relative paths too, so if you find yourself frequently cding into the same subdirectories you could create a corresponding variable.

[~/projects/powershell]> $gh = './.git/hooks'
[~/projects/powershell]> cd gh
[~/projects/powershell/.git/hooks]> █

You can combine it with AUTO_CD for great good:

[C:/projects/powershell/src/Modules/Unix]> xup -Export | out-null
[C:/projects/powershell/src/Modules/Unix]> projects
[C:/projects]> src
[C:/projects/powershell/src]> █

Gets the path of an ancestor directory, either by name or by number of levels (n), returning the parent of the current directory by default. It supports consuming values from the pipeline so you can do things like:

[C:/projects]> # find git repositories
[C:/projects]> ls .git -Force -Depth 2 | gup
C:\projects\cd-extras
C:\projects\work\app
...

[C:/projects]> # find chocolatey root directory
[C:/projects]> gcm choco | gup 2
C:\ProgramData\chocolatey

View contents of undo (cd-) and redo (cd+) stacks.

Use dirs -u for an indexed list of undo locations, dirs -r for a corresponding list of redo locations, or just dirs to see both.

Clear contents of undo (cd-) and/or redo (cd+) stacks.

Expands a candidate path by inserting wildcards between each segment. Use a trailing slash to expand children of the matched path(s). Contents of CD_PATH will be included.

👉 The expansion may match more than you expect. Test the output before piping it into a potentially destructive command.

cd-extras works on non-Windows operating systems. The IndexedCompletion option is off by default unless you configured PSReadLine with a MenuComplete keybinding before importing cd-extras.

Set-PSReadLineKeyHandler -Key Tab -Function MenuComplete

Otherwise you can enable cd-extras menu completions manually with:

setocd IndexedCompletion

cd-extras is primarily intended to work against the filesystem provider but it should work with other providers too.

[~]> cd hklm:\
[HKLM:]> cd so/mic/win/cur/windowsupdate
[HKLM:/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/WindowsUpdate]> ..
[HKLM:/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion]> cd-
[HKLM:/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/WindowsUpdate]> cd- 2
[~]> █

From the gallery

Install-Module cd-extras
Import-Module cd-extras

# add to profile. e.g:

Add-Content $PROFILE `n, 'Import-Module cd-extras'

or get the latest from github

git clone git@github.com:nickcox/cd-extras.git
Import-Module cd-extras/cd-extras/cd-extras.psd1 # yep, three :D

• AUTO_CD: [bool] = $true
  • Enables auto_cd.
• CDABLE_VARS: [bool] = $false
  • Enables cdable_vars.
• NOARG_CD: [string] = '~'
  • If specified, cd with no arguments will change into the given directory.
• CD_PATH: [string[]] = @()
  • Paths to be searched by cd and tab completion. An array, not a delimited string.
• WordDelimiters : [string[]] = '.', '_', '-'
  • Word boundaries within path segments. For example, .foo will be expanded into *.foo*.
• ToolTip : [ScriptBlock] = { param ($item, $isTruncated) ... }
  • Information displayed in the menu-completion tooltip. This is passed two arguments: the current item, and a boolean indicating whether the list of completions has been truncated. It should return a string.
• IndexedCompletion: [bool] = $true (if MenuComplete key bound)
  • If truthy, indexes are offered as completions for up, cd+ and cd- with full paths displayed in the menu.
• DirCompletions: [string[]] = 'Set-Location', 'Set-LocationEx', 'Push-Location'
  • Commands that participate in enhanced tab completion for directories.
• PathCompletions: [string[]] = 'Get-ChildItem', 'Get-Item', 'Invoke-Item', 'Expand-Path'
  • Commands that participate in enhanced tab completion for any path (files or directories).
• FileCompletions: [string[]] = @()
  • Commands that participate in enhanced tab completion for files.
• ColorCompletion : [bool] = false
  • When truthy, dir/path/file completions will be coloured by Format-ColorizedFilename, if available.
• MaxMenuLength : [int] = 35
  • Truncate completion menu items to this length.
• MaxCompletions : [int] = 0
  • Limit the number of menu completions offered. If falsy then cd_extras will attempt to calculate the maximum number of completions that can fit on the screen given the current $Host.UI.RawUI.WindowSize and $cde.MaxMenuLength. Otherwise should be no greater than (Get-PSReadLineOption).CompletionQueryItems.

To configure cd-extras create a hashtable, cde, with one or more of these keys before importing it:

$cde = @{
  AUTO_CD = $false
  CD_PATH = '~/Documents/', '~/Downloads'
}

Import-Module cd-extras

or call the Set-CdExtrasOption (setocd) function after importing the module:

Import-Module cd-extras

setocd PathCompletions Invoke-VSCode # appends PathCompletions
setocd CDABLE_VARS # turns CDABLE_VARS on
setocd AUTO_CD 0 # turns AUTO_CD off
setocd MaxCompletions 0 # auto calculate the maximum number of completions to display

# append the mode string for each item to the completion tooltip
setocd ToolTip { "$($args[0]) ($($args[0].Mode))" }

👉 If you want to opt out of the default completions then you should do it before cd-extras is loaded since PowerShell doesn't provide a way to unregister argument completers.

$cde = @{ DirCompletions = @() }
Import-Module cd-extras

If you want to bind navigation helpers to PSReadLine key handlers then you'll probably want to redraw the prompt after navigation.

function invokePrompt() { [Microsoft.PowerShell.PSConsoleReadLine]::InvokePrompt() }
@{
  'Alt+^'         = { if (up  -PassThru) { invokePrompt } }
  'Alt+['         = { if (cd- -PassThru) { invokePrompt } }
  'Alt+]'         = { if (cd+ -PassThru) { invokePrompt } }
  'Alt+Backspace' = { if (cdb -PassThru) { invokePrompt } }
}.GetEnumerator() | % { Set-PSReadLineKeyHandler $_.Name $_.Value }

cd-extras aliases cd to its proxy command, Set-LocationEx. If you want a different alias then you'll probably want to restore the original cd alias too.

[~]> set-alias cd set-location -Option AllScope
[~]> set-alias cde set-locationex
[~]> cde /w/s/d/et
[C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc]> cd- # still cd-, not cde-
[~]> █

👉 cd-extras will only remember locations visited via Set-LocationEx or its alias.

[~]> dirs -u

[~]> Set-Location code
[~/code]> cd-
[~/code]> █