dtags is a lightweight command line tool which lets you:

• Tag and un-tag directories
• Change directories quickly via tag names
• Run commands in multiple directories at once
• Use shell variables to reference the tagged directories
• Easily manage git repositories, vagrant machines etc.

Check requirements:

• Python 2.7+ or 3.4+
• Recent version of pip
• Recent version of Bash, Zsh or Fish with tab-completion enabled

Install the package:

# You may need to sudo depending on your setup
~$ pip install --upgrade dtags

Add the following line at the end of your shell runtime configuration and reload the shell:

# For zsh, place in ~/.zshrc:
command -v dtags-activate > /dev/null 2>&1 && eval "`dtags-activate zsh`"

# For bash, place in ~/.bashrc (or ~/.bash_profile for OS X):
command -v dtags-activate > /dev/null 2>&1 && eval "`dtags-activate bash`"

# For fish, place in ~/.config/fish/config.fish:
command -v dtags-activate > /dev/null 2>&1; and dtags-activate fish | source

Once installed, you will have 5 commands at your disposal: t, u, d, e and dtags. All commands come with tab-completion.

Tag directories with t:

~$ t ~/web dev work     # add tags 'dev' and 'work' to ~/web
~$ t ~/app              # tag ~/app with its basename, 'app'

Un-tag directories with u:

~$ u ~/web dev          # remove tag 'dev' from ~/web
~$ u ~/app              # remove all tags from ~/app

Change directories with d (designed to fully replace cd!):

~$ d                    # go to the user's home directory 
~$ d frontend           # go to the directory tagged 'frontend'
~$ d tag_with_many_dirs # prompt the user to select a specific directory         
~$ d ~/app              # go to directory ~/app

Execute commands in one or more directories with e:

~$ e repo git status    # execute 'git status' in directories tagged 'repo'
~$ e ~/vm vagrant halt  # execute 'vagrant halt' in directory ~/vm
~$ e -p vm git pull     # execute 'git pull' in directories tagged 'vm' in parallel
~$ e vm,~/foo ls        # execute 'ls' in directories tagged 'vm' and ~/foo

Display, search and manage tags with dtags:

~$ dtags                # display the directories-to-tags mapping
~$ dtags list ~ ~/vm    # display the tags and directories associated with ~ and ~/vm
~$ dtags list foo bar   # display the tags and directories associated with 'foo' or 'bar'
~$ dtags reverse        # display the tags-to-directories (reverse) mapping
~$ dtags edit           # edit tags and directories via editor like vim
~$ dtags clean          # remove invalid or stale tags and directories
~$ dtags commands       # display all available dtags commands (e.g. t, u, d, e)

If a tag points to a single directory, shell variables are automatically created:

~$ t ~/some/dir foo     # shell variable '$foo' is automatically created
~$ ls $foo/sub/dir      # $foo can now be used to denote the tagged directory ~/some/dir
~$ rm $foo/file.sh      # $foo can now be used to denote the tagged directory ~/some/dir

You can always use the --help option to find out more about each command!

• The directory-to-tags mapping is stored in ~/.dtags/mapping
• Tags are also stored on their own in ~/.dtags/tags for tab-completion
• e -p is currently not supported on Windows
• e -p cannot execute interactive commands that wait on input
• e -p spawns child processes and redirects their output to temporary files and then to stdout
• e -p sends sigterm to its child processes when killed
• e uses environment variable $SHELL to guess which shell is in use
• e redirects stderr to stdout and always returns an exit status of 0
• e uses interactive shell and this has pros and cons:
  • The user has access to all linux functions and aliases
  • The shell runtime configuration must be "sourced" each execution
  • The performance of e is affected by the shell startup time (beware oh-my-zsh users)
  • Any errors thrown during the "sourcing" will show up in the output
• dtags edit uses environment variable $EDITOR
• d prefers tags over subdirectories when there are name conflicts
  • To go to the subdirectory, put a / after the directory name
• d expects ~/.dtags/mapping to be correctly formatted:
  • Please refrain from editing ~/.dtags/mapping directly.
  • Instead, use dtags edit which does the validation and formatting for you
• Tab-completion expects ~/.dtags/tags to be correctly formatted:
  • Don't touch this file at all if possible
  • If this is deleted, it is auto-generated the next time a dtags command is run.
• Shell variable is created only if the name does not conflict with environment variable
• When shell variables are created hyphens are replaced with underscores