when will cd * work?

[Shailja]

Hi,

Kindly let me what would be the output of cd * command in UNIX?

[mac11]

Hi,

Kindly let me what would be the output of cd * command in UNIX?

When I do this it cd's me into the first directory (alphabetical order) so if I'm in a directory with sub-directories A/ and B/ cd * takes me into A/

[archonmagnus]

When I do this it cd's me into the first directory (alphabetical order) so if I'm in a directory with sub-directories A/ and B/ cd * takes me into A/

That is if the alpha-numeric "first-hit" is a directory. If the "first-hit" is a file, it will echo (in my case at least):

bash: cd: 4x.ods: Not a directory
 

[michaelb]

The examples above imply that noglob is not set (it's off) in the current shell. This built-in variable controls the wild card expansion and along with others can be set in a shell startup file - .login, .bashrc, .profile, .cshrc, etc.

In most cases it's unset, but just for the sake of argument consider this.
(The following uses the C-shell syntax, but concept may be valid for other shells too.)

% ls * 
   // - produces a long list of files
% set noglob
%ls *
ls: *: No such file or directory
%cd *
*: No such file or directory.
 // because shell was looking for file or dir literally named "*"