15 Practical pwd Examples in Linux You Should Know

You’ve probably typed pwd countless times without giving it much thought. But when you’re working inside a symlinked directory, writing a shell script that needs the current path, or troubleshooting why a command is running from an unexpected location, understanding how pwd reports the working directory becomes useful.

What pwd Actually Does

pwd stands for print working directory. It shows the absolute path of the directory you’re currently in, starting from the root directory (/).

On most Linux systems, pwd is available in two forms: as a shell builtin in shells such as bash, zsh, and ksh, and as a standalone /bin/pwd command provided by GNU coreutils. These two versions can behave differently when symbolic links are involved.

pwd [OPTION]

The examples in this guide were tested on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Fedora 42. The behavior described here is consistent across mainstream Linux distributions using GNU coreutils.

One detail that can easily cause confusion is what happens when you use both -L and -P. If both options are specified, the last option takes effect.

For example, pwd -L -P uses physical mode, while pwd -P -L uses logical mode.

There is also an important difference between the shell builtin and the GNU pwd binary when no option is specified. Bash’s builtin pwd defaults to logical mode (-L), while the GNU coreutils version defaults to physical mode (-P).

This is why the two commands can sometimes show different paths when you are inside a directory reached through a symbolic link.

1. Print Your Current Working Directory

The simplest use of pwd is to print the absolute path of the directory you’re currently in.

pwd
/home/tecmint

2. Create a Symlink and Move Into It

To see how pwd handles symbolic links, create a symlink to a system directory and move into it. We’ll use this directory in the next few examples.

ln -s /var/www/html/ htm
cd htm

3. Print the Logical Path with -L

Once you’re inside the symlinked directory, pwd -L shows the logical path, which preserves the symbolic link you used to reach the directory.

pwd -L

/home/tecmint/htm

4. Print the Physical Path with -P

The -P option shows the physical path instead. It resolves the symbolic link and displays the directory’s actual location on the filesystem.

pwd -P

/var/www/html

5. Check the Default Behavior of /bin/pwd

You can run the standalone pwd binary directly to see how it behaves without any options.

/bin/pwd

/var/www/html

This matches pwd -P, not pwd -L, showing that the GNU coreutils /bin/pwd binary defaults to resolving symbolic links.

Bash’s builtin pwd behaves differently. It tracks the logical path through the $PWD variable and defaults to -L. That’s why pwd and /bin/pwd can sometimes show different paths when you’re working inside a directory reached through a symbolic link.

6. Check Your pwd Version

If you’re troubleshooting a script that relies on a particular coreutils behavior or option, it can help to check which version of pwd you’re using.

/bin/pwd --version

pwd (GNU coreutils) 9.11
pwd (GNU coreutils) 9.11
Copyright (C) 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later .
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Common Mistake: Assuming pwd Accepts a Path

Unlike commands such as cd command or ls command, pwd command doesn’t accept a directory path to operate on. It reports the working directory of the current shell.

For example:

pwd /home

Depending on whether you’re running the shell builtin or the standalone binary, you’ll get an error rather than a change of directory. pwd never changes your current directory.

7. Find Every pwd Available on Your System

Your shell may have both a builtin pwd and a standalone coreutils binary. The type command shows which one is being used and where other versions can be found.

type -a pwd

pwd is a shell builtin
pwd is /bin/pwd

This is useful when pwd behaves differently from /bin/pwd, because it lets you confirm exactly which implementation your shell is resolving.

8. Store the Current Directory in a Variable

You can capture the output of pwd in a shell variable, which is useful when writing scripts that need to reuse the current directory.

a=$(pwd)
echo "Current working directory is: $a"

Current working directory is: /home/tecmint

Using command substitution with $(pwd) lets the shell run pwd and assign its output to the variable.

9. Check the Current and Previous Directory

Bash keeps track of both the current directory and the directory you most recently left. These are available through the $PWD and $OLDPWD variables.

echo "$PWD $OLDPWD"

/home /home/tecmint

Here, $PWD contains the current working directory, while $OLDPWD contains the previous one. This is also what makes commands such as cd useful for quickly switching back to the directory you just left.

10. Show the Current Directory in Your Shell Prompt

You can configure Bash’s prompt to show the current directory automatically, so you don’t need to run pwd every time you want to check where you are.

PS1='w$ '

For example:

~/tecmint$

The w in Bash’s PS1 is a prompt escape that expands to the current working directory, using ~ for your home directory. It is preferable to putting $(pwd) directly in PS1, because command substitution in the assignment is evaluated when the assignment runs rather than automatically each time the prompt is displayed.

Common Mistake: Expanding $(pwd) When Setting PS1

It’s easy to assume that PS1="$(pwd)> ” will keep showing your current directory. However, the $(pwd) command is evaluated when you assign the variable, so the prompt can remain stuck at that directory.

Use Bash’s built-in w or W prompt escapes instead which is designed to update automatically whenever the prompt is displayed.

PS1='w$ '

If you genuinely need command substitution in a custom prompt, keep the command inside single quotes so Bash can expand it when the prompt is displayed:

PS1='$(pwd)> '

Then change directories and check the prompt using cd /tmp and the prompt should now reflect the new directory.

11. Find the Absolute Path of the pwd Binary

Useful when more than one version of a command exists across your $PATH.

which pwd

/bin/pwd

Keep in mind that which only finds executables in your $PATH. It won’t identify Bash’s builtin pwd, which is why type -a pwd from the earlier example is more useful when you want to see all available implementations.

12. Find the pwd Manual Page

The location of a command’s manual page can vary between distributions. Instead of assuming a fixed path, let man tell you where the page is installed.

man -w pwd

/usr/share/man/man1/pwd.1.gz

You can then open it normally with:

man pwd

13. Use pwd Inside a Conditional Shell Script

pwd becomes more useful in scripts when you need to check the directory from which a script is running before performing an action. First, create a test directory and script:

mkdir -p ~/tecmint && cd ~/tecmint
nano pwd-check.sh

Add the following:

#!/bin/bash
x="$(pwd)"
if [ "$x" == "/home/$USER/tecmint" ]; then
  echo "You're in the tecmint directory"
else
  echo "Not in tecmint, currently in: $x"
fi

Make the script executable and run it:

chmod +x pwd-check.sh
./pwd-check.sh

You're in the tecmint directory

The script stores the current working directory in x and then compares it with the expected path before continuing.

14. Get the Parent Directory Without Changing Directories

You can combine pwd with dirname to get the parent directory of your current working directory without actually moving there.

cd ~/tecmint/htm 2>/dev/null || cd ~/tecmint
echo "Parent directory: $(dirname "$(pwd)")"

Parent directory: /home/tecmint

Here, pwd supplies the current directory, while dirname removes the final path component to return its parent directory.

15. Compare pwd with realpath

The realpath command resolves the current path to its canonical physical location. Comparing it with pwd -P is a quick way to verify that both commands resolve the same physical path.

cd ~/tecmint/htm
pwd -P
realpath .

/var/www/html
/var/www/html

Both commands resolve the htm symbolic link and show the actual target directory.

Conclusion

By now, you should have a clear idea of how pwd command works beyond simply printing your current directory. You’ve seen how -L and -P handle symbolic links differently, why Bash’s builtin pwd and the /bin/pwd binary can return different paths, and how to use pwd in scripts, shell prompts, and path comparisons.

The easiest way to make this behavior clear is to try it yourself. Find a symlinked directory on your Linux system, cd into it, and run pwd -L followed by pwd -P. Seeing the logical and physical paths side by side makes the difference much easier to understand.

Have you ever run into a script that behaved unexpectedly because of a logical versus physical path, or a shell prompt that showed the wrong directory? Tell us what happened in the comments below.