In Unix-like and some other operating systems, the command (print working directory) writes the full pathname of the current working directory to the standard output.

Implementations

Multics had a command (which was a short name of the command) from which the Unix pwd command originated. The command is a shell builtin in most Unix shells such as Bourne shell, ash, bash, ksh, and zsh. It can be implemented easily with the POSIX C functions or. It is also available in the operating systems SpartaDOS X, PANOS, and KolibriOS. The equivalent on DOS and Microsoft Windows is the command with no arguments. Windows PowerShell provides the equivalent cmdlet with the standard aliases and. On Windows CE 5.0, the Command Processor Shell includes the command. pwd as found on Unix systems is part of the X/Open Portability Guide since issue 2 of 1987. It was inherited into the first version of POSIX.1 and the Single Unix Specification. It appeared in Version 5 Unix. The version of bundled in GNU coreutils was written by Jim Meyering. The numerical computing environments MATLAB and GNU Octave include a function with similar functionality. The OpenVMS equivalent is.

*nix examples

Note: POSIX requires that the default behavior be as if the switch were provided.

Working directory shell variables

POSIX shells set the following environment variables while using the cd command: