pwd(P) pwd(P) NAME pwd - return working directory name SYNOPSIS pwd [-L | -P ] DESCRIPTION The pwd utility shall write to standard output an abso- lute 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 IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines. The following options shall be supported by the imple- mentation: -L If the PWD environment variable contains an abso- lute 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 util- ity 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 internationaliza- tion 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 internationalization variables used to determine the values of locale cate- gories.) 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 mes- sages written to standard 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 cur- rent 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", 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 standard 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 historical implementations of pwd. Because pwd is frequently used in historical shell scripts without checking the exit status, it is important that the his- torical behavior is required here; therefore, the CONSE- QUENCES 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 Operat- ing System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Speci- fications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Insti- tute 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 . POSIX 2003 pwd(P)