Manually expanding special variables in Bash: Tilde

When working with Bash, it's important to understand the use of special variables and how to manually expand them. One such variable is the tilde (~).

In Bash, the tilde represents the home directory of the current user. However, it can also be used to represent the home directory of a specific user. To manually expand the tilde, simply add the username after it, like so: ~username.

For example, if the current user is "bob" and we want to refer to the home directory of the user "alice", we can use the tilde expansion like this: ~alice. This will expand to the full path of Alice's home directory.

It's important to note that tilde expansion is not performed inside quotes, so if you want to use it as part of a string, you'll need to manually expand it first.

In summary, tilde expansion is a useful tool in Bash for quickly referencing home directories. By adding a username after the tilde, you can manually expand it to refer to a specific user's home directory.