Click & jump to any file or folder from the terminal

By Dan Bader — Get free updates of new posts here.

iTerm2 for macOS has a little known feature that lets you open files and folders simply by Cmd+Clicking on them in the terminal. Among other things, this is super handy for debugging tests.

With this so called Semantic History feature you can configure iTerm2 to open folders and files in their default application when you press Cmd and then click on them.

So if you click on a folder name it will open in the Finder, and if you click on a .py file, for example, it will open in your editor.

The amazingly cool part is that this also works with line numbers, so if you click on something like test_myapp.py:42 in the terminal your editor opens test_myapp.py and moves the cursor to line 42! 😀

This unbelievably handy if you’re running your unit tests from the command line. I use it all the time to click and jump to failed test cases with the Pytest test runner, for example.

Here’s how to set up Semantic History in iTerm2:

Open the iTerm2 preferences by clicking on iTerm2 → Preferences in the menu bar (or press Cmd+,)
Click on Profiles in the top row, then click Advanced all the way to the right. Find the section that says Semantic History.
Under Semantic History, set the first option to Open with editor… and then pick your favorite editor (I use Sublime Text 3).
Close the preferences window – that’s it!

If you need some more help setting this up and a quick demo of what you can do with this feature, watch my video below:

Like I said, I found this “click to jump to file” feature extremely helpful for working with tests.

I usually run my Python tests with Pytest and it prints test failure messages in a format that iTerm2 understands. So I can simply Cmd+click on a failed test assertion and that’ll open up the test case Sublime Text, placing the cursor at the exact line that caused the test to fail.

This feature should be completely language agnostic by the way. You’ll be able to use it with any test runner or programming language – and any editor.

P.S. Unfortunately iTerm2 is only available on macOS. I’d love to learn if there’s a way to get the same functionality on Windows or Linux, so far I haven’t been able to find anything. If you know how to do this on Linux or Windows please get in touch and tell me how to do it :) Thanks!

<strong>5 Sublime Text Plugins</strong> to <em><u>Boost</u> Your Python Productivity</em>

5 Sublime Text Plugins to Boost Your Python Productivity

Free 5-day class—just enter your email address below:

This article was filed under: productivity, programming, python, sublimetext, and video.

Related Articles:

Using Sublime Text as your Git editor – A quick screencast that shows you how to use Sublime Text as your Git editor. Super useful if you work with Git from the command line!
A better Python REPL: bpython vs python – A quick video that demonstrates bpython, an awesome alternative Python interpreter.
How to use Sublime Text from the command line – Sublime Text comes with a handy command line tool (“subl”) that lets you control Sublime Text from the terminal. In this 3 minute screencast I’ll show you how to setup the command and what you can do with it.
Setting up Sublime Text for Python development – I recently started using Sublime Text 2 more and more as my main editor for Python development. This article explains my setup and some tweaks that make Python programmers happy.
Sublime Text for Python development — My 2016 review – When you ask for editor recommendations as a Python developer one of the top choices you’ll hear about is Sublime Text. In this post I’ll review the status of Python development with Sublime Text as of 2016.

Latest Articles:

Interfacing Python and C: The CFFI Module – How to use Python’s built-in CFFI module for interfacing Python with native libraries as an alternative to the “ctypes” approach.
Write More Pythonic Code by Applying the Things You Already Know – There’s a mistake I frequently make when I learn new things about Python… Here’s how you can avoid this pitfall and learn something about Python’s “enumerate()” function at the same time.
Working With File I/O in Python – Learn the basics of working with files in Python. How to read from files, how to write data to them, what file seeks are, and why files should be closed.
How to Reverse a String in Python – An overview of the three main ways to reverse a Python string: “slicing”, reverse iteration, and the classic in-place reversal algorithm. Also includes performance benchmarks.
Mastering Click: Writing Advanced Python Command-Line Apps – How to improve your existing Click Python CLIs with advanced features like sub-commands, user input, parameter types, contexts, and more.
Working with Random Numbers in Python – An overview for working with randomness in Python, using only functionality built into the standard library and CPython itself.

← Browse All Articles

5 Sublime Text Tweaks to Boost Your Python Productivity