1PWD(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual PWD(1P)
2
6 This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux
7 implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding
8 Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may
9 not be implemented on Linux.
10
13 pwd — return working directory name
14
16 pwd [−L|−P]
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19 The pwd utility shall write to standard output an absolute pathname of
20 the current working directory, which does not contain the filenames dot
21 or dot-dot.
22
24 The pwd utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of
25 POSIX.1‐2008, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.
26 The following options shall be supported by the implementation:
28 −L If the PWD environment variable contains an absolute pathname
30 of the current directory that does not contain the filenames
31 dot or dot-dot, pwd shall write this pathname to standard
32 output. Otherwise, if the PWD environment variable contains a
33 pathname of the current directory that is longer than
34 {PATH_MAX} bytes including the terminating null, and the
35 pathname does not contain any components that are dot or dot-
36 dot, it is unspecified whether pwd writes this pathname to
37 standard output or behaves as if the −P option had been spec‐
38 ified. Otherwise, the −L option shall behave as the −P
39 option.
40 −P The pathname written to standard output shall not contain any
42 components that refer to files of type symbolic link. If
43 there are multiple pathnames that the pwd utility could write
44 to standard output, one beginning with a single <slash> char‐
45 acter and one or more beginning with two <slash> characters,
46 then it shall write the pathname beginning with a single
47 <slash> character. The pathname shall not contain any unnec‐
48 essary <slash> characters after the leading one or two
49 <slash> characters.
50 If both −L and −P are specified, the last one shall apply. If neither
52 −L nor −P is specified, the pwd utility shall behave as if −L had been
53 specified.
54
56 None.
57
59 Not used.
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62 None.
63
65 The following environment variables shall affect the execution of pwd:
66 LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization vari‐
68 ables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions vol‐
69 ume of POSIX.1‐2008, Section 8.2, Internationalization Vari‐
70 ables the precedence of internationalization variables used
71 to determine the values of locale categories.)
72 LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of
74 all the other internationalization variables.
75 LC_MESSAGES
77 Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format
78 and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard
79 error.
80 NLSPATH Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing
82 of LC_MESSAGES.
83 PWD An absolute pathname of the current working directory. If an
85 application sets or unsets the value of PWD, the behavior of
86 pwd is unspecified.
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89 Default.
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92 The pwd utility output is an absolute pathname of the current working
93 directory:
94 "%s\n", <directory pathname>
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98 The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
99
101 None.
102
104 None.
105
107 The following exit values shall be returned:
108 0 Successful completion.
110 >0 An error occurred.
112
114 If an error is detected, output shall not be written to standard out‐
115 put, a diagnostic message shall be written to standard error, and the
116 exit status is not zero.
117 The following sections are informative.
119
121 If the pathname obtained from pwd is longer than {PATH_MAX} bytes, it
122 could produce an error if passed to cd. Therefore, in order to return
123 to that directory it may be necessary to break the pathname into sec‐
124 tions shorter than {PATH_MAX} and call cd on each section in turn (the
125 first section being an absolute pathname and subsequent sections being
126 relative pathnames).
127
129 None.
130
132 Some implementations have historically provided pwd as a shell special
133 built-in command.
134 In most utilities, if an error occurs, partial output may be written to
136 standard output. This does not happen in historical implementations of
137 pwd. Because pwd is frequently used in historical shell scripts with‐
138 out checking the exit status, it is important that the historical
139 behavior is required here; therefore, the CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS sec‐
140 tion specifically disallows any partial output being written to stan‐
141 dard output.
142 An earlier version of this standard stated that the PWD environment
144 variable was affected when the −P option was in effect. This was incor‐
145 rect; conforming implementations do not do this.
146
148 None.
149
151 cd
152 The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Chapter 8, Environment
154 Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines
155 The System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2008, getcwd()
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159 Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
160 from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology
161 -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
162 Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the Institute of Electri‐
163 cal and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. (This is
164 POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) In the
165 event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
166 The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
167 is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online
168 at http://www.unix.org/online.html .
169 Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are
171 most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source
172 files to man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.ker‐
173 nel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
174IEEE/The Open Group 2013 PWD(1P)