PWD(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual PWD(1P)PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux
implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding
Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may
not be implemented on Linux.
NAMEpwd — return working directory name
SYNOPSISpwd [−L|−P]
DESCRIPTION
The pwd utility shall write to standard output an absolute pathname of
the current working directory, which does not contain the filenames dot
or dot-dot.
OPTIONS
The pwd utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of
POSIX.1‐2008, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.
The following options shall be supported by the implementation:
−L If the PWD environment variable contains an absolute pathname
of the current directory that does not contain the filenames
dot or dot-dot, pwd shall write this pathname to standard
output. Otherwise, if the PWD environment variable contains a
pathname of the current directory that is longer than
{PATH_MAX} bytes including the terminating null, and the
pathname does not contain any components that are dot or dot-
dot, it is unspecified whether pwd writes this pathname to
standard output or behaves as if the −P option had been spec‐
ified. Otherwise, the −L option shall behave as the −P
option.
−P The pathname written to standard output shall not contain any
components that refer to files of type symbolic link. If
there are multiple pathnames that the pwd utility could write
to standard output, one beginning with a single <slash> char‐
acter and one or more beginning with two <slash> characters,
then it shall write the pathname beginning with a single
<slash> character. The pathname shall not contain any unnec‐
essary <slash> characters after the leading one or two
<slash> characters.
If both −L and −P are specified, the last one shall apply. If neither
−L nor −P is specified, the pwd utility shall behave as if −L had been
specified.
OPERANDS
None.
STDIN
Not used.
INPUT FILES
None.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of pwd:
LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization vari‐
ables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions vol‐
ume of POSIX.1‐2008, Section 8.2, Internationalization Vari‐
ables the precedence of internationalization variables used
to determine the values of locale categories.)
LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of
all the other internationalization variables.
LC_MESSAGES
Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format
and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard
error.
NLSPATH Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing
of LC_MESSAGES.
PWD An absolute pathname of the current working directory. If an
application sets or unsets the value of PWD, the behavior of
pwd is unspecified.
ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
Default.
STDOUT
The pwd utility output is an absolute pathname of the current working
directory:
"%s\n", <directory pathname>
STDERR
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
OUTPUT FILES
None.
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
None.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values shall be returned:
0 Successful completion.
>0 An error occurred.
CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
If an error is detected, output shall not be written to standard out‐
put, a diagnostic message shall be written to standard error, and the
exit status is not zero.
The following sections are informative.
APPLICATION USAGE
If the pathname obtained from pwd is longer than {PATH_MAX} bytes, it
could produce an error if passed to cd. Therefore, in order to return
to that directory it may be necessary to break the pathname into sec‐
tions shorter than {PATH_MAX} and call cd on each section in turn (the
first section being an absolute pathname and subsequent sections being
relative pathnames).
EXAMPLES
None.
RATIONALE
Some implementations have historically provided pwd as a shell special
built-in command.
In most utilities, if an error occurs, partial output may be written to
standard output. This does not happen in historical implementations of
pwd. Because pwd is frequently used in historical shell scripts with‐
out checking the exit status, it is important that the historical
behavior is required here; therefore, the CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS sec‐
tion specifically disallows any partial output being written to stan‐
dard output.
An earlier version of this standard stated that the PWD environment
variable was affected when the −P option was in effect. This was incor‐
rect; conforming implementations do not do this.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
cd
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Chapter 8, Environment
Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines
The System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2008, getcwd()COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology
-- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the Institute of Electri‐
cal and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. (This is
POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) In the
event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online
at http://www.unix.org/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are
most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source
files to man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.ker‐
nel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
IEEE/The Open Group 2013 PWD(1P)
