Bash Quick Tip - Subshells

• Thu, Apr 15, 2010
• One-minute read

When you’re in a shell, and you want to do 1 or 2 commands in another brand new shell, but don’t feel like opening a new window, try using a subshell.

Here’s an example:

~ jhaddad$ pwd
/Users/jhaddad
~ jhaddad$ ( cd /tmp/; touch bacon.txt )
~ jhaddad$ pwd
/Users/jhaddad
~ jhaddad$ ls -lah /tmp/bacon.txt
-rw-r--r--  1 jhaddad  wheel     0B Apr 15 13:09 /tmp/bacon.txt

Why I like it: I can very quickly fire off a command that involves changing directories without having to switch back to my pwd.