02-filedir.md (Navigating Files and Directories)

[LiamTheBox]

What is the problem?

This is where I got the file

https://swcarpentry.github.io/shell-novice/#download-files

There seems to be an inconsistency in here I call a double "shell-lesson-data", here is one the instructions from the following page.

https://swcarpentry.github.io/shell-novice/02-filedir.html

Here is what it says

It turns out that cd without an argument will return you to your home directory, which is great if you’ve got lost in your own filesystem.

Let’s try returning to the exercise-data directory from before. Last time, we used three commands, but we can actually string together the list of directories to move to exercise-data in one step:

cd Desktop/shell-lesson-data/exercise-data

Hers is what the folder structure is from the file I got from the site:

LiamBox@non-steam-machine:~$ pwd
/home/LiamBox
LiamBox@non-steam-machine:~$ cd Desktop
LiamBox@non-steam-machine:~/Desktop$ ls
shell-lesson-data
LiamBox@non-steam-machine:~/Desktop$ cd shell-lesson-data
LiamBox@non-steam-machine:~/Desktop/shell-lesson-data$ ls
__MACOSX  shell-lesson-data
LiamBox@non-steam-machine:~/Desktop/shell-lesson-data$ cd shell-lesson-data
LiamBox@non-steam-machine:~/Desktop/shell-lesson-data/shell-lesson-data$ ls
exercise-data  north-pacific-gyre
LiamBox@non-steam-machine:~/Desktop/shell-lesson-data/shell-lesson-data$ cd exercise-data
LiamBox@non-steam-machine:~/Desktop/shell-lesson-data/shell-lesson-data/exercise-data$ ls
alkanes  animal-counts  creatures  numbers.txt  writing

Notice /Desktop/shell-lesson-data/shell-lesson-data/exercise-data is not what the instructions say.

I hope this is not an error on my side, and I am sorry if it is.

Location of problem (optional)

the shell-lesson-data.zip file or the whole shell-novice pages

[LiamTheBox]

I know this is outside the scope of the issue, but I just feel odd with this sentence on the mentioned page (02-filedir.md)

"Another shortcut is the - (dash) character. cd will translate - into the previous directory I was in, which is faster than having to remember, then type, the full path. This is a very efficient way of moving back and forth between two directories – i.e. if you execute cd - twice, you end up back in the starting directory. "

Considering the wording, shouldn't that be "the previous directory you were in"?

[bkmgit]

Thanks for reporting. Pull requests to fix these problems are welcome. Will check in the next few days.

[omsai]

"[...]if you execute cd - twice, you end up back in the starting directory."

I also look forward to a pull request because to me "starting directory" refers to the directory before running any cd - commands I'm so not clear on how the current sentence can be approved.

Her[e] is what the folder structure is from the file I got from the site:

LiamBox@non-steam-machine:~/Desktop/shell-lesson-data$ ls

__MACOSX shell-lesson-data

The directory you download only has the single directory level which you can see from unzip -l shell-lesson-data.zip

The way I typically see the double nest directory you describe happen on Windows is when you double-click on downloaded zip file. In an effort to avoid tarbombing your directory, Windows will create an additional directory based on the file name of the zip file and unzip the contents there. If instead you were to open the context menu on the zip file (right-click on Windows) and then "Extract All..." without creating an additional directory. See also https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/zip-and-unzip-files-8d28fa72-f2f9-712f-67df-f80cf89fd4e5