pwd

For other uses, see PWD (disambiguation).

pwd

The pwd command
Original author(s)	AT&T Bell Laboratories
Developer(s)	Various open-source and commercial developers
Initial release	June 1974 (1974-06)
Written in	C
Operating system	Multics, Unix, Unix-like, V, Plan 9, Inferno, SpartaDOS X, PANOS, Windows CE, KolibriOS
Platform	Cross-platform
Type	Command
License	coreutils: GPLv3+ Plan 9: MIT License

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.

Implementations

Multics had a pwd command (which was a short name of the print_wdir command) from which the Unix pwd command originated. 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, PANOS, and KolibriOS. 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. On Windows CE 5.0, the cmd.exe Command Processor Shell includes the pwd command.

pwd as found on Unix systems is part of the X/Open Portability Guide since issue 2 of 1987. It was inherited into the first version of POSIX.1 and the Single Unix Specification. It appeared in Version 5 Unix. The version of pwd bundled in GNU coreutils was written by Jim Meyering.

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

Further reading

• McElhearn, Kirk (2006). The Mac OS X Command Line: Unix Under the Hood. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0470113851.

External links

• pwd – Shell and Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 4 from The Open Group
• pwd(1) – FreeBSD General Commands Manual
• pwd(1) – NetBSD General Commands Manual
• pwd(1) – OpenBSD General Commands Manual
• pwd(1) – Solaris 11.4 User Commands Reference Manual
• pwd(1) – Linux User Manual – User Commands
• pwd(1) – Plan 9 Programmer's Manual, Volume 1
• pwd(1) – Inferno General commands Manual