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linuxbashpipels

Why doesn't the cd command work when trying to pipe it with another command

I'm trying to use a pipeline with cd and ls like this:

ls -l | cd /home/user/someDir

but nothing happens.

And I tried:

cd /home/user/someDir | ls -l

It seems that the cd command does nothing while the ls -l will work on the current directory.

The directory that I'm trying to open is valid.

Why is that? Is it possible to pipe commands with cd / ls? Didn't have any problem with other commands while using pipe.

Solution

  • cd takes no input and produces no output; as such, it does not make sense to use it in pipes (which take output from the left command and pass it as input to the right command).

    Are you looking for ls -l ; cd /somewhere?

    Another option (if you need to list the target directory) is:

    cd /somewhere && ls -l

    The '&&' here will prevent executing the second command (ls -l) if the target directory does not exist.