{"id":12617,"date":"2019-03-28T03:57:16","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T03:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/?p=12617"},"modified":"2019-03-28T03:57:16","modified_gmt":"2019-03-28T03:57:16","slug":"15-pwd-print-working-directory-command-examples-in-linux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/2019\/03\/28\/15-pwd-print-working-directory-command-examples-in-linux\/","title":{"rendered":"15 \u2018pwd\u2019 (Print Working Directory) Command Examples in Linux"},"content":{"rendered":"

For those working with Linux command Line, command \u2018pwd<\/b>\u2018 is very helpful, which tells where you are \u2013 in which directory, starting from the root (\/<\/b>). Specially for Linux newbies, who may get lost amidst of directories in command Line Interface while navigation, command \u2018pwd<\/b>\u2018 comes to rescue.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Linux<\/a><\/p>\n

15 pwd Command Examples<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What is pwd?<\/h3>\n

\u2018pwd<\/b>\u2018 stands for \u2018Print Working Directory<\/b>\u2018. As the name states, command \u2018pwd<\/b>\u2018 prints the current working directory or simply the directory user is, at present. It prints the current directory name with the complete path starting from root (\/<\/b>). This command is built in shell command and is available on most of the shell \u2013 bash, Bourne shell, ksh,zsh, etc.<\/p>\n

Basic syntax of pwd:<\/h5>\n
# pwd [OPTION]\r\n<\/pre>\n
Options used with pwd<\/h5>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\u00a0Options<\/b><\/td>\n\u00a0Description<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0-L (logical)<\/td>\n\u00a0Use PWD from environment, even if it contains symbolic links<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0-P (physical)<\/td>\n\u00a0Avoid all symbolic links<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0\u2013help<\/td>\n\u00a0Display this help and exit<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0\u2013version<\/td>\n\u00a0Output version information and exit<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
If both \u2018-L<\/b>\u2018 and \u2018-P<\/b>\u2018 options are used, option \u2018L<\/b>\u2018 is taken into priority. If no option is specified at the prompt, pwd will avoid all symlinks, i.e., take option \u2018-P<\/b>\u2018 into account.<\/p>\n
Exit status of command pwd:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
0<\/td>\nSuccess<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Non-zero<\/td>\nFailure<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
This article aims at providing you a deep insight of Linux command \u2018pwd<\/strong>\u2018 with practical examples.<\/p>\n
1.<\/strong>\u00a0Print your current working directory.<\/p>\n
avi@tecmint:~$ \/bin\/pwd\r\n\r\n\/home\/avi\r\n<\/pre>\n
\n
\"pwd<\/a><\/p>\n
Print Working Directory<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
2.<\/strong>\u00a0Create a symbolic link of a folder (say\u00a0\/var\/www\/html<\/b>\u00a0into your home directory as\u00a0htm<\/b>). Move to the newly created directory and print working directory with symbolic links and without symbolic links.<\/p>\n
Create a symbolic link of folder \/var\/www\/html as htm in your home directory and move to it.<\/p>\n
avi@tecmint:~$ ln -s \/var\/www\/html\/ htm\r\navi@tecmint:~$ cd htm\r\n<\/pre>\n
\n
\"Create<\/a><\/p>\n
Create Symbolic Link<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
3.<\/strong>\u00a0Print working directory from environment even if it contains symlinks.<\/p>\n
avi@tecmint:~$ \/bin\/pwd -L\r\n\r\n\/home\/avi\/htm\r\n<\/pre>\n
\n
\"Print<\/a><\/p>\n
Print Current Working Directory<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
4.<\/strong>\u00a0Print actual physical current working directory by resolving all symbolic links.<\/p>\n
avi@tecmint:~$ \/bin\/pwd -P\r\n\r\n\/var\/www\/html\r\n<\/pre>\n
\n
\"Print<\/a><\/p>\n
Print Physical Working Directory<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
5.<\/strong>\u00a0Check if the output of command \u201cpwd<\/b>\u201d and \u201cpwd -P<\/b>\u201d are same or not i.e., if no options are given at run-time does \u201cpwd<\/b>\u201d takes option\u00a0-P<\/b>\u00a0into account or not, automatically.<\/p>\n
avi@tecmint:~$ \/bin\/pwd\r\n\r\n\/var\/www\/html\r\n<\/pre>\n
\n
\"Check<\/a><\/p>\n
Check pwd Output<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Result<\/strong>: It\u2019s clear from the above output of example 4 and 5 (both result are same) thus, when no options are specified with command \u201cpwd<\/b>\u201d, it automatically takes option \u201c-P<\/b>\u201d into account.<\/p>\n
6.<\/strong>\u00a0Print version of your \u2018pwd\u2019 command.<\/p>\n
avi@tecmint:~$ \/bin\/pwd --version\r\n\r\npwd (GNU coreutils) 8.23\r\nCopyright (C) 2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.\r\nLicense GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http:\/\/gnu.org\/licenses\/gpl.html>.\r\nThis is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.\r\nThere is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.\r\n\r\nWritten by Jim Meyering.\r\n<\/pre>\n
\n
\"Check<\/a><\/p>\n
Check pwd Version<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Note<\/strong>: A \u2018pwd\u2019 command is often used without options and never used with arguments.<\/p>\n
Important<\/strong>: You might have noticed that we are executing the above command as \u201c\/bin\/pwd<\/b>\u201d and not \u201cpwd<\/b>\u201d.<\/p>\n
So what\u2019s the difference? Well \u201cpwd<\/b>\u201d alone means shell built-in pwd. Your shell may have different version of pwd. Please refer manual. When we are using\u00a0\/bin\/pwd<\/b>, we are calling the binary version of that command. Both the shell and the binary version of command Prints Current Working Directory, though the binary version have more options.<\/p>\n
7.<\/strong>\u00a0Print all the locations containing executable named pwd.<\/p>\n
avi@tecmint:~$ type -a pwd\r\n\r\npwd is a shell builtin\r\npwd is \/bin\/pwd\r\n<\/pre>\n
\n
\"Print<\/a><\/p>\n
Print Executable Locations<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
8.<\/strong>\u00a0Store the value of \u201cpwd<\/b>\u201d command in variable (say\u00a0a<\/b>), and print its value from the variable (important for shell scripting perspective).<\/p>\n
avi@tecmint:~$ a=$(pwd)\r\navi@tecmint:~$ echo \"Current working directory is : $a\"\r\n\r\nCurrent working directory is : \/home\/avi\r\n<\/pre>\n
\n
\"Store<\/a><\/p>\n
Store Pwd Value in Variable<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Alternatively, we can use\u00a0printf<\/b>, in the above example.<\/p>\n
9.<\/strong>\u00a0Change current working directory to anything (say\u00a0\/home<\/b>) and display it in command line prompt. Execute a command (say \u2018ls<\/b>\u2018) to verify is everything is\u00a0OK<\/b>.<\/p>\n
avi@tecmint:~$ cd \/home\r\navi@tecmint:~$ PS1='$pwd> '\t\t[Notice single quotes in the example]\r\n> ls\r\n<\/pre>\n
\n
\"Change<\/a><\/p>\n
Change Current Working Directory<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
10.<\/strong>\u00a0Set multi-line command line prompt (say something like below).<\/p>\n
\/home\r\n123#Hello#!\r\n<\/pre>\n
And then execute a command (say\u00a0ls<\/b>) to check is everything is\u00a0OK<\/b>.<\/p>\n
avi@tecmint:~$ PS1='\r\n> $PWD\r\n$ 123#Hello#!\r\n$ '\r\n\r\n\/home\r\n123#Hello#!\r\n<\/pre>\n
\n
\"Set<\/a><\/p>\n
Set Multi Commandline Prompt<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
11.<\/strong>\u00a0Check the current working directory and previous working directory in one GO!<\/p>\n
avi@tecmint:~$ echo \u201c$PWD $OLDPWD\u201d\r\n\r\n\/home \/home\/avi\r\n<\/pre>\n
\n
\"Check<\/a><\/p>\n
Check Present Previous Working Directory<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
12.<\/strong>\u00a0What is the absolute path (starting from\u00a0\/<\/b>) of the pwd binary file.<\/p>\n
\/bin\/pwd \r\n<\/pre>\n
13.<\/strong>\u00a0What is the absolute path (starting from\u00a0\/<\/b>) of the pwd source file.<\/p>\n
\/usr\/include\/pwd.h \r\n<\/pre>\n
14.<\/strong>\u00a0Print the absolute path (starting from\u00a0\/<\/b>) of the pwd manual pages file.<\/p>\n
\/usr\/share\/man\/man1\/pwd.1.gz\r\n<\/pre>\n
15.<\/strong>\u00a0Write a shell script analyses current directory (say\u00a0tecmint<\/b>) in your home directory. If you are under directory\u00a0tecmint<\/b>\u00a0it output \u201cWell! You are in tecmint directory<\/b>\u201d and then print \u201cGood Bye<\/b>\u201d else create a directory\u00a0tecmint<\/b>under your home directory and ask you to\u00a0cd<\/b>\u00a0to it.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s first create a \u2018tecmint\u2019 directory, under it create a following shell script file with name \u2018pwd.sh\u2019.<\/p>\n
avi@tecmint:~$ mkdir tecmint\r\navi@tecmint:~$ cd tecmint\r\navi@tecmint:~$ nano pwd.sh\r\n<\/pre>\n
Next, add the following script to the pwd.sh file.<\/p>\n
#!\/bin\/bash\r\n\r\nx=\"$(pwd)\"\r\nif [ \"$x\" == \"\/home\/$USER\/tecmint\" ]\r\nthen\r\n     {\r\n      echo \"Well you are in tecmint directory\"\r\n      echo \"Good Bye\"\r\n     }\r\nelse\r\n     {\r\n      mkdir \/home\/$USER\/tecmint\r\n      echo \"Created Directory tecmint you may now cd to it\"\r\n     }\r\nfi\r\n<\/pre>\n
Give execute permission and run it.<\/p>\n
avi@tecmint:~$ chmod 755 pwd.sh\r\navi@tecmint:~$ .\/pwd.sh\r\n\r\nWell you are in tecmint directory\r\nGood Bye\r\n<\/pre>\n
Conclusion<\/h3>\n
pwd<\/b>\u00a0is one of the simplest yet most popular and most widely used command. A good command over pwd is basic to use Linux terminal. That\u2019s all for now.<\/p>\n
Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For those working with Linux command Line, command \u2018pwd\u2018 is very helpful, which tells where you are \u2013 in which directory, starting from the root (\/). Specially for Linux newbies, who may get lost amidst of directories in command Line Interface while navigation, command \u2018pwd\u2018 comes to rescue. 15 pwd Command Examples What is pwd? … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “15 \u2018pwd\u2019 (Print Working Directory) Command Examples in Linux”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12618,"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12617\/revisions\/12618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}