Invoking the OSX Finder from the command line

I spend a great deal of time operating from the command line, be it on OSX, Linux or Cygwin (on Windows). My primary machine runs OSX, and from time to time I wished I could view the files in the current working directory in the OSX Finder. For whatever reason, I’m usually in too much of a rush to search for or think about a quicker way to invoke the finder with the current directory from the command line. Instead, I wind up just opening the finder and (re)navigating to the same directory.

The other day, for whatever reason, I tried something that just seems sooo obvious in hindsight – use the OSX open command, passing in the current working directory.

flurge:~ user$ open .

Voila – new finder window is opened right off the command line. I should have thought about it sooner.