Create a bash alias for the cd - command

Question

I'd like the create the alias -- for the bash cd - command. Searching to solve this problem, I found the advice to use this alias:

alias -- -="cd -"

However, that leads to the following error, as seen in this session snippet:

chris@DeathStar:~$ cd .vim
chris@DeathStar:~/.vim$ --
-bash: --: command not found
chris@DeathStar:~/.vim$ 

My bash --version:

GNU bash, version 4.2.39(2)-release (i386-apple-darwin12.2.1)
Copyright (C) 2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

The alias you created seems to be -, not --. If you want it to be --, you need to declare it as:

alias -- --="cd -"

You can always check the list of declared aliases in your shell session, by simply typing alias.

P.S.

The first -- sequence following the alias has nothing to do with the alias name, it's just needed in order for the alias command to not consider following parameters starting with a - as command options.