PWD(1) General Commands Manual PWD(1)

pwd — return working directory name

pwd [-L | -P]

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.

The pwd utility shall conform to XBD V1_chap12(7).

The following options shall be supported by the implementation:

If the PWD environment variable contains an absolute pathname of the current directory and the pathname does not contain any components that are dot or dot-dot, pwd shall write this pathname to standard output, except that if the PWD environment variable is longer than {PATH_MAX} bytes including the terminating null, it is unspecified whether pwd writes this pathname to standard output or behaves as if the -P option had been specified. Otherwise, the -L option shall behave as the -P option.
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> character 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 unnecessary <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.

None.

Not used.

None.

The following environment variables shall affect the execution of pwd:

Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. (See XBD the precedence of internationalization variables used to determine the values of locale categories.)
If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization variables.

Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error.
[ XSI] Determine the location of messages objects and message catalogs.
An absolute pathname of the current working directory. If an application sets or unsets the value of PWD , the behavior of pwd is unspecified.

Default.

The pwd utility output is an absolute pathname of the current working directory:

"%s\n", <directory pathname>

The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

None.

None.

The following exit values shall be returned:

Successful completion.
An error occurred.

If an error is detected other than a write error when writing to standard output, no output shall be written to standard output, a diagnostic message shall be written to standard error, and the exit status shall be non-zero.

If the pathname obtained from pwd is longer than {PATH_MAX} bytes, it could produce an error if passed to cd(1). Therefore, in order to return to that directory it may be necessary to break the pathname into sections shorter than {PATH_MAX} and call cd(1) on each section in turn (the first section being an absolute pathname and subsequent sections being relative pathnames).

None.

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 (unless an error condition causes a partial write). 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, except when a write error occurs when writing to standard output.

An earlier version of this standard stated that the PWD environment variable was affected when the -P option was in effect. This was incorrect; conforming implementations do not do this.

If this utility is directed to display a pathname that contains any bytes that have the encoded value of a <newline> character when <newline> is a terminator or separator in the output format being used, implementations are encouraged to treat this as an error. A future version of this standard may require implementations to treat this as an error.

cd(1)

XBD V1_chap08(7), V1_chap12(7)

XSH getcwd(3)

First released in Issue 2.

The -P and -L options are added to describe actions relating to symbolic links as specified in the IEEE P1003.2b draft standard.

Austin Group Interpretation 1003.1-2001 #097 is applied.

SD5-XCU-ERN-97 is applied, updating the SYNOPSIS.

Changes to the pwd utility and PWD environment variable have been made to match the changes to the getcwd(3) function made for Austin Group Interpretation 1003.1-2001 #140.

POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 2, XCU/TC2-2008/0161 [471] is applied.

Austin Group Defect 251 is applied, encouraging implementations to report an error if a utility is directed to display a pathname that contains any bytes that have the encoded value of a <newline> character when <newline> is a terminator or separator in the output format being used.

Austin Group Defect 1122 is applied, changing the description of NLSPATH .

Austin Group Defect 1488 is applied, clarifying the behavior when a write error occurs when writing to standard output.

June 14, 2024 posix.fail