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 (con-
       sult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the  interface  may  not  be  implemented  on
       Linux.

NAME
       pwd - return working directory name

SYNOPSIS
       pwd [-L | -P ]

DESCRIPTION
       The pwd utility shall write to standard output an absolute pathname of the current working directory, which does not con-
       tain the filenames dot or dot-dot.

OPTIONS
       The pwd utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guide-
       lines.

       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, the -L option shall  behave
              as the -P option.

       -P     The  absolute pathname written shall not contain filenames that, in the context of the pathname, refer to files of
              type symbolic link.


       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 variables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions
              volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 8.2, Internationalization Variables for the precedence  of  international-
              ization 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 stan-
              dard error.

       NLSPATH
              Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES .

       PWD    If the -P option is in effect, this variable shall be set to an absolute pathname of the current working directory
              that  does  not  contain any components that specify symbolic links, does not contain any components that are dot,
              and does not contain any components that are dot-dot. 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 output, a diagnostic message shall be written to stan-
       dard error, and the exit status is not zero.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE
       None.

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 histori-
       cal  implementations of pwd. Because pwd is frequently used in historical shell scripts without checking the exit status,
       it is important that the historical behavior is required here; therefore, the CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS section specifically
       disallows any partial output being written to standard output.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
       None.

SEE ALSO
       cd, the System Interfaces volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, getcwd()

COPYRIGHT
       Portions  of  this  text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for
       Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6,  Copy-
       right (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. 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.open-
       group.org/unix/online.html .



IEEE/The Open Group                                           2003                                                       PWD(1P)