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pwd

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Chris Tyler (talk | contribs) at 19:21, 8 March 2020 (Added references to Multics pwd / print_wdir command.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

For other uses, see PWD (disambiguation).


pwd
Original author(s)AT&T Bell Laboratories
Developer(s)Various open-source and commercial developers
Initial releaseJune 1974; 50 years ago (1974-06)
Operating systemMultics, Unix and Unix-like, SpartaDOS X, PANOS, KolibriOS
TypeCommand
Licensecoreutils: GNU GPL v3

In Unix-like and some other operating systems, the pwd command (print working directory)[1][2][3][4][5] writes the full pathname of the current working directory to the standard output.[6][7][8][9][10]

Implementations

Multics had a pwd command (which was a short name of the print_wdir command)[11] from which the Unix pwd command originated[12]. 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().

It is also available in the operating systems SpartaDOS X,[13] PANOS,[14] and KolibriOS.[15] 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.

The version of pwd bundled in GNU coreutils was written by Jim Meyering.[16]

The numerical computing environments MATLAB and GNU Octave include a pwd function with similar functionality.[17][18]

*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:[19]

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

See also

References

  1. ^ Unix Time-Sharing System: Unix Programmer's Manual (PDF). Vol. 1 (7th ed.). Bell labs. January 1979. p. 142. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2005-05-20.
  2. ^ Minix MAN page
  3. ^ Linux MAN page
  4. ^ GNU Coreutils MAN page
  5. ^ Bell Labs Plan 9 MAN page
  6. ^ POSIX Standard (IEEE Std 1003.1) pwd page
  7. ^ DEC OSF/1 MAN page
  8. ^ Apple OS X MAN page
  9. ^ OpenBSD MAN page
  10. ^ OpenSolaris MAN page
  11. ^ "working_dir, wd, print_wdir, pwd (Multics help segment)". MIT. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
  12. ^ Van Vleck, Tom. "Unix and Multics". Multicians.org. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
  13. ^ SpartaDOS X 4.48 User Guide
  14. ^ http://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/Panos.html#CL
  15. ^ http://wiki.kolibrios.org/wiki/Shell
  16. ^ https://linux.die.net/man/1/pwd
  17. ^ https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/pwd.html
  18. ^ https://octave.sourceforge.io/octave/function/pwd.html
  19. ^ POSIX Standard (IEEE Std 1003.1) cd page

Further reading

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