pwd

For other uses, see PWD (disambiguation).

In Unix-like and some other operating systems, the pwd command (print working directory) writes the full pathname of the current working directory to the standard output.

The command is a shell builtin in most Unix shells such as Bourne shell, ash, bash, ksh, and zsh. It can be implemented easily with the POSIX C functions getcwd() or getwd().

The equivalent on DOS (COMMAND.COM) and Microsoft Windows (cmd.exe) is the cd command with no arguments. Windows PowerShell provides the equivalent Get-Location cmdlet with the standard aliases gl and pwd. The OpenVMS equivalent is show default.

*nix examples

Command	Explanation
pwd	Display the current working directory. Example: /home/foobar
pwd -P	Display the current working directory physical path - without symbolic link name, if any. Example: If standing in a dir /home/symlinked, that is a symlink to /home/realdir, this would show /home/realdir
pwd -L	Display the current working directory logical path - with symbolic link name, if any. Example: If standing in a dir /home/symlinked, that is a symlink to /home/realdir, this would show /home/symlinked

Note: POSIX requires that the default behavior be as if the -L switch were provided.

Working directory shell variables

POSIX shells set the following environment variables while using the cd command:

OLDPWD – The previous working directory (as set by the cd command).
PWD – The current working directory (as set by the cd command).

See also

• Breadcrumb (navigation), an alternative way of displaying the work directory
• List of GNU Core Utilities commands
• List of Unix commands
• pushd and popd