pwd

pwd (print working directory)^[1][2][3] is a shell command that reports the working directory path to standard output.^{[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]}

Although often associated with Unix, its predecessor Multics had a pwd command (which was a short name of the print_wdir command^[11]) from which the Unix command originated.^[12] The command 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.^[13] It appeared in Version 5 Unix.^[14] The version bundled in GNU Core Utilities was written by Jim Meyering.^[15]

The command is available in other shells and operating systems including SpartaDOS X,^[16] PANOS,^[17] and KolibriOS.^[18] PowerShell provides pwd as an alias for the cmdlet Get-Location. An equivalent command in COMMAND.COM and Command Prompt is the cd command with no arguments. On Windows CE 5.0, cmd.exe includes a pwd command.^[19] The OpenVMS equivalent is show default.

The numerical computing environments MATLAB and GNU Octave include a pwd function with similar functionality.^[20][21]

The command is implemented as a shell builtin in many Unix shells including sh, ash, bash, ksh, and zsh. It can be implemented with the POSIX getcwd() or getwd() functions.

The following examples are based on a typical Unix-based implementation.

With no arguments, the command writes the working directory path to the terminal:

$ cd /home/example
$ pwd
/home/example

Display the working directory without any symbolic link info. If at a directory /home/symlinked that is a symlink to /home/realdir:

$ cd /home/symlinked
$ pwd -P
/home/realdir

Display the working directory with symbolic link info. Note: POSIX requires that the default behavior be as if the -L switch were provided.

$ pwd -L
/home/symlinked

POSIX shells set the following environment variables while using the cd command:^[22]

OLDPWD

The previous working directory

PWD

The current working directory

• Breadcrumb (navigation), an alternative way of displaying the work directory
• List of POSIX commands
• pushd and popd

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

• pwd – Shell and Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 5 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