How do I create a terminal shortcut to this path?

Here is defined an alias solr which will cd to the named directory-:

alias solr='cd /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/whoat/solr/whoat'

Note the use of single quotes - double quotes will cause the cd to go to to the home directory.

I sometimes prefer to add a pwd to the alias as a check and reminder of what the current working directory is-:

alias solr='cd /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/whoat/solr/whoat;pwd'

Ideally you would put this alias in your .bash_profile in your home directory. You can use a text editor such as TextEdit or vim to add the alias command to .bash_profile. Then to load the new alias into your shell type-:

source .bash_profile

Links

To create links, you use the ln command. See man ln.
You could do it like ln -s /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/whoat/solr/whoat /where/you/want/link, where:

• The first path is what you are linking
• The second path is where the link will be

Directory Navigation

man cd

There are two ways to navigate with cd, absolute and relative.
The easiest way to get from home to applications is cd /Applications/

• Capitalization matters....

Editing Files

Doing ~/.bash_profile isn't how you edit a file.... you were trying to run the file like it was a script (even though it a config file) Also, here is a decent article on the difference between ~/.bashrc and ~/.bash_profile

If you want to edit it from terminal, you have to use an editor, like vim/emacs/pico etc.

• vim ~/.bash_profile
• emacs ~/.bash_profile
• pico ~/.bash_profile

Editing on Mac

As you are on OS X, you could use open -e ~/.bash_profile to open with TextEditor

• Don't use sudo!

Sudo

You shouldn't be using sudo to try to 'force edit' you user's files.

• It can mess up a file's permissions to be root's
• It can lead to damaging accidents when you don't know what you are doing (so you should avoid it)
• Just because you were doing it wrong, doesn't make sudo a magic wand to fix commands.

In Conclusion

Please read a few unix tutorials...