Terminal is a great app to get around your filesystem but it gets to be a pain in the hands to type those long pathnames. Here's some quick tips on typing paths or filenames in terminal.
1. If you want to get to your home directory quickly, just type ~ and hit return. You will be at the root level of you're home directory. Note if you are su'd as root you'll go to root home dir.
2. When type paths or file names, start typing the path and hit tab. Your Terminal (shell) will complete the word for you. If nothing appears to happen, hit tab again and shell will give you all the words in that path that have the partial of what you typed.Start typing again till you are past the uniqueness of the word and hit tab to finish typing the word for you. A little practice and you can navigate the CLI faster than point and clicking.
See the rest of this article for some additional examples and comments.
Examples: Note that the "%" is a prompt; you do NOT have to type it in!
Type:
% cd /et (hit tab and next line is the results)
% cd /etc/
Type:
% ls /et (tab) ho (tab)
You'll get a listing of files and directories that begin with ho. If this case your'e shell will look like this:
hostconfig hostconfig.old hosts hosts.equiv hosts.lpd
% ls /etc/ho
This is handy if you want to know whats in a directory or run a program w/o having to cd into the directory.
This will also save you time by checking if you have a directory or file typed correctly. Remember all files and dirs are case-sensitive in *nix. If after hitting tab a couple times and nothing appears, you're file or path is mispelled.
Sources: These are common *nix hints. They can be found out by playing with a shell program or reading any of the zillion *nix books out there.
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2001051112261054