call cd in shell script

Question

I have one shell script opening a perl script. This perl script should be opened in a terminal. I am able to open the terminal but I'm unable to call a cd to reach the perl script's location

    $PROJECT_DIR = "$PROJECT_DIR";

    echo "$PROJECT_DIR" > "$PROJECT_DIR/Testing/buildProductPathHello.txt"

osascript -e 'tell app "Terminal"
    do script "pwd"
    do script "cd $PROJECT_DIR" in window 1
    do script "ls" in window 1
    do script "./RunTests.pl" in window 1
end tell'

The variable $PROJECT_DIR contains the path, I am verifying this by writing the path into a file. Ultimately, it's the command cd $PROJECT_DIR is the one that does not work. Does not do cd on the content of the variable.

PS: this is on a mac with a bash shell

Answer 1

Each script runs as its own process, does its thing, and exits. The state of the script, including environment variables and its current directory definition, is discarded when it exits -- so you can't expect a script that does nothing but "cd" to still have effect later.

If instead you did something like this:

do script "cd $PROJECT_DIR; ls; ./runTests.pl"

...then that would do all three commands within a single shell, and the results would be what you expect.

Answer 2

There's no need for cd in this case; just combine your two calls ie do script "$PROJECT_DIR/ls" in window 1