Pwd command in Linux (Current working directory)

Admin

What is the Current Working Directory

The current working directory is the directory in which the user is currently working in. Each time you interact with your command prompt, you are working within a directory.

By default, when you log into your Linux system, your current working directory is set to your home directory. To change the working directory use the cd command.

For example, to change the current working directory to /tmp you would type:

cd /tmp

If you have a customized bash or zsh prompt, the path to the current working directory may be shown in the shell prompt.

user@host:/tmp#

Copy

pwd Command

The pwd command stands for print working directory. It is one of the most basic and frequently used commands in Linux. When invoked the command prints the complete path of the current working directory.

pwd is a shell builtin in most modern shells such as bash and zsh. Its behavior is slightly different than the standalone /bin/pwd executable. You can use the type command to display all locations containing pwd:

type -a pwd
pwd is a shell builtin
pwd is /bin/pwd

As you can see from the output below, the shell builtin has priority over the standalone executable and it is used whenever you type pwd. If you want to use the standalone pwd binary type the full path to the file /bin/pwd

How to Find your Current Working Directory

To find out what directory you are currently in, type pwd in your terminal:

pwd

The output will look something like this:

/home/testuser

What the pwd does is printing the PWD environment variable .

You will get the same output if you type:

echo $PWD
/home/testuser

The pwd command can accept only two arguments:

  • -L (--logical) – Do not resolve symlinks.
  • -P (--physical) – Display the physical directory, without any symbolic links.

By default, id no option is used, pwd behaves as if -L option is specified.

To better illustrate how the -P option works, let’s create a directory and symlink pointing to the directory:

mkdir /tmp/directoryln -s /tmp/directory /tmp/symlink

Now if you navigate to the /tmp/symlink directory and you type pwd in your terminal:

pwd

The output will show that your current working directory is /tmp/symlink:

/tmp/symlink

If you run the same command using the -P option:

pwd -P

The command will print the directory to which the symlink points to:

/tmp/directory