Programmatically Setting Terminal CWD

Hi there,

I am trying to create a command line utility that allows me to change directories in a terminal efficiently. Basically I want to be able to programmatically set the current working directory in Terminal.app (using either c++ or objective-c++).

The following code (together with provided output) shows an example of the problem I am experiencing:

Code:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

#define COLOR_RED   "\E[0;31;48m"
#define COLOR_BLACK "\E[0;30;48m"

#define PERROR() fprintf(stderr,"  %sERROR:%s ", COLOR_RED, COLOR_BLACK)
#define D_ERROR( e, msg, ... ) do{ PERROR(); fprintf( stderr, msg , ## __VA_ARGS__); fprintf(stderr,"\n"); exit(e); } while(0)
//#define _SOL1

string getCWD() {
    char result[FILENAME_MAX];
    if( !getcwd( result, sizeof(result) ) )
        D_ERROR( -1, "Could not get current working directory.\n" );
    return string( result, (strlen(result) > 0) ? strlen(result) : 0 );
}

int setCWD( const char *path ) {
#ifdef _SOL1
    BOOL success;
    NSFileManager *fm = [NSFileManager defaultManager];

    NSAutoreleasePool *pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
    NSString *nsPath = [NSString stringWithCString:path encoding:[NSString defaultCStringEncoding]];
    success = [fm changeCurrentDirectoryPath: nsPath];
    [pool release];

    if( success == YES ) return 0;
#else
    if( !chdir( path ) ) return 0;
#endif

    return -1;
}

int main( int argc, char **argv ) {
    fprintf( stdout, "  Current Directory: %s\n", getCWD().c_str() );

    fprintf( stdout, "  Enter Desired CWD: " );
    string dir;
    getline( cin, dir );
    int e = setCWD( dir.c_str() );
    if( e == 0 ) {
        fprintf( stdout, "  Current Directory: %s\n", getCWD().c_str() );
        return 0;
    }
    fprintf( stderr, "Could not change cwd to %s.\n", dir.c_str() );
    return -1;
}

And this output:

Code:

birchy-mac: pwd
/Users/birchy/Dev/cwd
birchy-mac: ./cwd.out
  Current Directory: /Users/birchy/Dev/cwd
  Enter Desired CWD: /Users/
  Current Directory: /Users
birchy-mac: pwd
/Users/birchy/Dev/cwd
birchy-mac: 

It appears that the current working directory is being changed successfully within the scope of the application, however the current working directory of Terminal.app does not change (as is apparent by the output of pwd after execution of the application).

I have tried both of the shown implementations within setCWD, (ie traditional UNIX way and the Cocoa way) yet both exhibit this same behaviour.

Does anyone have any idea why this is happening?
Does anyone know how I can solve this issue?

Help would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

 

Yes, I could wrap it in a bash script.

Actually, the original implementation of this utility was done in bash, however I was having issues supporting the script on multiple platforms, so I decided to take a shot at implementing the utility in c++.

This being said, it is my intension to implement this entirely in c++/objective-c++.

Anyone know of a workaround to this issue?

Is it possible to capture the pid of the parent (Terminal.app) and then set the id of another process (Terminal.app)?