The program xd is a program smart directory changer. It allows you to change to a directory specifying only its initial characters or a subset of the initial characters allowing commands like 'xd ulb' to do a 'chdir /usr/local/bin'.

xd can be used in combination with the standard tab-filename completion as offered by most shells. But as xd is very easy to use, one is quickly addicted to xd when changing to directories that are not close to the current working directory. Small changes required thereafter are in practice always performed using the facilities offered by the command shell.

When multiple expansions are available xd offers a list of alternatives from which the user may select an option by simply pressing an associated key. Directories that are never selected by the user may be ignored using directives in xd's configuration file.