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"...and other flavors as well"
Does this line make sense or is it a typo? will not change without revert.
````
Does every "flavor" of pwd have -P and -L for options? I'm using Slackware 12.1. The man page for pwd doesn't mention them, but pwd --help displays them (with no explanation). I found this:
Options -P : The pathname printed will not contain symbolic links. -L : The pathname printed may contain symbolic [11]
GravityIsForSuckers ( talk) 18:01, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
On 21-Dec-2014 I made an edit on the claim that pwd should be understood as being "present working directory":
# https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/1997/12/msg01064.html. 1997-12-11. "To determine your current or present working directory enter --> pwd <CR>" # http://www.linfo.org/current_directory.html 2007-07-12. "... the pwd (i.e., present working directory) command." # http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Set_working_directory_to_the_current_file "The present working directory can be displayed in Vim with: pwd"
Mr. Vincent Lefèvre just commented: "See http://www.linfo.org/pwd.html" and summarily erased my edit.
The site linfo.org reports conflicting concepts about "pwd". For "present" results in 10 hits, like:
http://www.linfo.org/current_directory.html ... run the pwd (i.e., present working directory) command. http://www.linfo.org/command_line_lesson_1.html ... command to learn is pwd, which stands for present working directory. http://www.linfo.org/path.html ... using the pwd (i.e., present working directory) command ...
For "print" reveals only three links, similar to:
http://www.linfo.org/pwd.html ... pwd is actually an acronym for print working directory. http://www.linfo.org/command.html ... pwd, which stands for print working directory
Even if there are more links for "present" than "print", we should agree that linfo.org is an unreliable source.
http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/ldp/LDP/www.debian.org/doc/manuals/user/ch-files.html 4.2 Basic file commands - a tutorial "pwd stands for Present Working Directory."
...This was an unsigned comment from User:JustToHelp
...I am signing it now. :).
JustToHelp (
talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
User Commands PWD(1) NAME pwd - working directory name SYNOPSIS pwd DESCRIPTION Pwd prints the pathname of the working (current) directory. SEE ALSO cd(1)
The page quoted by Schily above is just WRONG, incorrectly quoted.
The Unix man pages (Version 7) are available here:
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/
And searching for pwd leads here:
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/pwd.html
The relevant part of the page is then (correctly) reproduced here:
NAME pwd - return working directory name SYNOPSIS pwd [-L|-P] DESCRIPTION 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.
An independent source of such page is the web archive:
http://web.archive.org/web/20110516200602/http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/pwd.html
Lets take a look at the contents of older docs in the claim of Schily: "The Single UNIX Specification"
Warning: Most of the data for the "opengroup.org" is behind a PAY wall. Some links are available for frMaybe. I don't think so. However your claimed source is unable to support a definition with the word "print...".ee, but I could not be sure that they will remain so. I'll provide web.archive.org links where possible.
Specifically, Version 1 is only available paying.
Issue 4:
The document for "Commands and Utilities, Issue 4, Version 2" is available only in pdf in here:
http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/pubs/catalog/c436.htm
Version 2:
The Single UNIX Specification, Version 2 (1997) is here:
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xcu/pwd.html
and here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120928214846/http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xcu/pwd.html
In none of those pages for the command pwd is there any mention of the word "print".
So: no claim to "print ...." could be made from such UNIX references. JustToHelp ( talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
Maybe. I don't think so. However your claimed source is unable to support a definition with the word "print...".
The "Hands-on Guide to theRed Hat® ExamsRHSCA™ and RHCE® Cert Guide" (to which I can not freely link here) states that:
"...pwd Shows the present working directory..."
According to you Debian is unreliable, Is Red-Hat "RHCE® Cert Guide" also unreliable?
JustToHelp ( talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
User Commands PWD(1) NAME pwd - working directory name SYNOPSIS pwd DESCRIPTION Pwd prints the pathname of the working (current) directory. SEE ALSO cd(1)
BTW: it is very bad style to modify other people's statements on a talk page! Schily ( talk) 10:49, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
That a command does print some output to the screen does not mean that it must be named print or that print must be in any part of it's description. For example: the command "ls" indeed prints the contents of a directory on the screen. However, the name of "ls" is almost universally understood to be "list files". It is not "pdc" (print directory contents) nor "pdf" (print directory files), nor some other silly name. It is just "L.i.S.t.". A very clear example of a command for which its name is very different than its actions is the command "print". Yes, the command print could "print" some output to the screen, but its main use is related to see and edit MIME(Mailcap) files. JustToHelp ( talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
Note that I provided http://www.linfo.org/pwd.html not because it was a trusted reference, but because you ( JustToHelp) also provided a linfo.org link, meaning an obvious contradiction there. Note also that the user who added http://www.linfo.org/pwd.html said "Although it is often thought of as standing for present working directory, pwd is actually an acronym for print working directory." Thus before claiming that pwd stands for present working directory, more research should be done.
I agree that more research on your part will be helpful. JustToHelp ( talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
There's the original historical meaning (i.e. the very first one), on which I don't know anything (and it may be difficult to find a reliable source), and the one that is considered as correct nowadays. Whether it is considered a good choice or not is not the subject here.
What is the subject here?, then. JustToHelp ( talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
Regarding your 3 links:
Maybe, but is the oldest one I was able to find at the time. It comes from 1997 and it shows that at that time the meaning was actively used. It should be noted that this is an issue of "language use" and not a technical definition. As such, the oldest recorded use of the term gives relevance to the term itself. I may be persuaded to accept that BOTH uses are valid. Just erasing the one you don't like is NOT the answer. JustToHelp ( talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
That shows AGAIN, that pwd was understood to be "present .... " at the time. Again, plain rejection of what you don't like is not the correct answer. JustToHelp ( talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
More reliable sources are official documentation of the pwd command. For instance, GNU coreutils has always said: "pwd - Print working directory", starting with
the initial commit in 2001.
Well, coreutils is the result of the merging of several packages, one of which is sh-utils. That is an older source of the pwd command, one for which I found this link from (August 1999):
http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/45/idpl/516415/numer/1/nazwa/pwd
But, yes, GNU has consistently presented "print..." in the manual for the command. In any case. The use of "present..." has been documented before 1999. Understanding present as "the current one", a very easy to find alternative meaning of the word "present...":
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/present
. As such, it is not difficult to understand why "present ..." and "current ..." are both valid and synonymous.
JustToHelp (
talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
The pwd documentation in the Solaris manual says: "The pwd command (print working directory) displays..." (for several versions of the manual). The V.E.R.A. dictionary says: "PWD Print Working Directory". Arnold Robbins's Unix in a Nutshell book also uses "print working directory".
Concerning the notion of working directory, POSIX either says "current working directory" or just "working directory". No such thing as present working directory. So, there's no good reason why pwd would stand for present working directory, while print working directory makes more sense.
And present is a synonym of current, thus "present working directory" means the same. JustToHelp ( talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
Note that the Debian User Reference Manual is obsolete (as said on the page). Its reliability is questionable.
Vincent Lefèvre ( talk) 22:51, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
pwd prints working directory name (END. next section is format)... pwd (END. next section is description)... pwd prints the working (or current) directory, from where the request was initiated, as an absolute path from the root. (END. next section is options)... none (END. next section is notes)... none
What obsolete means is that "it is very old" and not current. All that it says is that the manual WAS present and valid at an older time. As such, is just another sample of the same concept: "present" also means "current". JustToHelp ( talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
I started a new section because the previous sections were so incredibly confusing and hard to make sense of. pwd means "present working directory". I know because I learned UNIX back when the utilities were being created, and I clearly remember it meaning "present working directory". BTW, the man page examples do NOT say "print working directory". So whoever used the man page as "proof" for "print working directory" just lost all credibility. Of course, the man page does not say "present working directory" either. So the man page is neutral on the meaning. But I remember what it meant around when the command was created. It would never have been called "print working directory". That's totally not Unix style. 174.24.228.1 ( talk) 05:11, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
The UNIX TIME-SHARING SYSTEM: UNIX PROGRAMMER’S MANUAL Seventh Edition, Volume 1 (January, 1979) by Bell labs says:
NAME pwd – working directory name SYNOPSIS pwd DESCRIPTION Pwd prints the pathname of the working (current) directory. SEE ALSO cd(1)
See article for this and various other UNIX and UNIX-like man pages.
Needless to say, those early UNIX versions really did mean "print", because the Datapoint 2200 glass TTY had not yet replaced the Teleprinter on most systems. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 04:47, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
References
-- Guy Macon ( talk) 22:48, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
Multics, generally regarded as the precedecesor to Unix, had a pwd command, which was the short name of print_wdir command [1] [2]. This appears to predate and be the inspiratin for the name of the Unix pwd command. While the Wikipedia entry for ls recognizes that the Unix ls command came from Multics, this page does not similarly recognize the Multics precedent for the pwd command. This Multics pwd/print_wdir equivalence also provides support for pwd meaning "print working directory". I propose that Multics be added to the "Operating System" list in the sidebar and mentioned as the parent implementation in the "Implementation" section.
-- Chris Tyler ( talk) 04:25, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, this would be a good idea. Vincent Lefèvre ( talk) 11:37, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
References
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||
|
"...and other flavors as well"
Does this line make sense or is it a typo? will not change without revert.
````
Does every "flavor" of pwd have -P and -L for options? I'm using Slackware 12.1. The man page for pwd doesn't mention them, but pwd --help displays them (with no explanation). I found this:
Options -P : The pathname printed will not contain symbolic links. -L : The pathname printed may contain symbolic [11]
GravityIsForSuckers ( talk) 18:01, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
On 21-Dec-2014 I made an edit on the claim that pwd should be understood as being "present working directory":
# https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/1997/12/msg01064.html. 1997-12-11. "To determine your current or present working directory enter --> pwd <CR>" # http://www.linfo.org/current_directory.html 2007-07-12. "... the pwd (i.e., present working directory) command." # http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Set_working_directory_to_the_current_file "The present working directory can be displayed in Vim with: pwd"
Mr. Vincent Lefèvre just commented: "See http://www.linfo.org/pwd.html" and summarily erased my edit.
The site linfo.org reports conflicting concepts about "pwd". For "present" results in 10 hits, like:
http://www.linfo.org/current_directory.html ... run the pwd (i.e., present working directory) command. http://www.linfo.org/command_line_lesson_1.html ... command to learn is pwd, which stands for present working directory. http://www.linfo.org/path.html ... using the pwd (i.e., present working directory) command ...
For "print" reveals only three links, similar to:
http://www.linfo.org/pwd.html ... pwd is actually an acronym for print working directory. http://www.linfo.org/command.html ... pwd, which stands for print working directory
Even if there are more links for "present" than "print", we should agree that linfo.org is an unreliable source.
http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/ldp/LDP/www.debian.org/doc/manuals/user/ch-files.html 4.2 Basic file commands - a tutorial "pwd stands for Present Working Directory."
...This was an unsigned comment from User:JustToHelp
...I am signing it now. :).
JustToHelp (
talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
User Commands PWD(1) NAME pwd - working directory name SYNOPSIS pwd DESCRIPTION Pwd prints the pathname of the working (current) directory. SEE ALSO cd(1)
The page quoted by Schily above is just WRONG, incorrectly quoted.
The Unix man pages (Version 7) are available here:
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/
And searching for pwd leads here:
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/pwd.html
The relevant part of the page is then (correctly) reproduced here:
NAME pwd - return working directory name SYNOPSIS pwd [-L|-P] DESCRIPTION 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.
An independent source of such page is the web archive:
http://web.archive.org/web/20110516200602/http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/pwd.html
Lets take a look at the contents of older docs in the claim of Schily: "The Single UNIX Specification"
Warning: Most of the data for the "opengroup.org" is behind a PAY wall. Some links are available for frMaybe. I don't think so. However your claimed source is unable to support a definition with the word "print...".ee, but I could not be sure that they will remain so. I'll provide web.archive.org links where possible.
Specifically, Version 1 is only available paying.
Issue 4:
The document for "Commands and Utilities, Issue 4, Version 2" is available only in pdf in here:
http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/pubs/catalog/c436.htm
Version 2:
The Single UNIX Specification, Version 2 (1997) is here:
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xcu/pwd.html
and here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120928214846/http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xcu/pwd.html
In none of those pages for the command pwd is there any mention of the word "print".
So: no claim to "print ...." could be made from such UNIX references. JustToHelp ( talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
Maybe. I don't think so. However your claimed source is unable to support a definition with the word "print...".
The "Hands-on Guide to theRed Hat® ExamsRHSCA™ and RHCE® Cert Guide" (to which I can not freely link here) states that:
"...pwd Shows the present working directory..."
According to you Debian is unreliable, Is Red-Hat "RHCE® Cert Guide" also unreliable?
JustToHelp ( talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
User Commands PWD(1) NAME pwd - working directory name SYNOPSIS pwd DESCRIPTION Pwd prints the pathname of the working (current) directory. SEE ALSO cd(1)
BTW: it is very bad style to modify other people's statements on a talk page! Schily ( talk) 10:49, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
That a command does print some output to the screen does not mean that it must be named print or that print must be in any part of it's description. For example: the command "ls" indeed prints the contents of a directory on the screen. However, the name of "ls" is almost universally understood to be "list files". It is not "pdc" (print directory contents) nor "pdf" (print directory files), nor some other silly name. It is just "L.i.S.t.". A very clear example of a command for which its name is very different than its actions is the command "print". Yes, the command print could "print" some output to the screen, but its main use is related to see and edit MIME(Mailcap) files. JustToHelp ( talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
Note that I provided http://www.linfo.org/pwd.html not because it was a trusted reference, but because you ( JustToHelp) also provided a linfo.org link, meaning an obvious contradiction there. Note also that the user who added http://www.linfo.org/pwd.html said "Although it is often thought of as standing for present working directory, pwd is actually an acronym for print working directory." Thus before claiming that pwd stands for present working directory, more research should be done.
I agree that more research on your part will be helpful. JustToHelp ( talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
There's the original historical meaning (i.e. the very first one), on which I don't know anything (and it may be difficult to find a reliable source), and the one that is considered as correct nowadays. Whether it is considered a good choice or not is not the subject here.
What is the subject here?, then. JustToHelp ( talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
Regarding your 3 links:
Maybe, but is the oldest one I was able to find at the time. It comes from 1997 and it shows that at that time the meaning was actively used. It should be noted that this is an issue of "language use" and not a technical definition. As such, the oldest recorded use of the term gives relevance to the term itself. I may be persuaded to accept that BOTH uses are valid. Just erasing the one you don't like is NOT the answer. JustToHelp ( talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
That shows AGAIN, that pwd was understood to be "present .... " at the time. Again, plain rejection of what you don't like is not the correct answer. JustToHelp ( talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
More reliable sources are official documentation of the pwd command. For instance, GNU coreutils has always said: "pwd - Print working directory", starting with
the initial commit in 2001.
Well, coreutils is the result of the merging of several packages, one of which is sh-utils. That is an older source of the pwd command, one for which I found this link from (August 1999):
http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/45/idpl/516415/numer/1/nazwa/pwd
But, yes, GNU has consistently presented "print..." in the manual for the command. In any case. The use of "present..." has been documented before 1999. Understanding present as "the current one", a very easy to find alternative meaning of the word "present...":
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/present
. As such, it is not difficult to understand why "present ..." and "current ..." are both valid and synonymous.
JustToHelp (
talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
The pwd documentation in the Solaris manual says: "The pwd command (print working directory) displays..." (for several versions of the manual). The V.E.R.A. dictionary says: "PWD Print Working Directory". Arnold Robbins's Unix in a Nutshell book also uses "print working directory".
Concerning the notion of working directory, POSIX either says "current working directory" or just "working directory". No such thing as present working directory. So, there's no good reason why pwd would stand for present working directory, while print working directory makes more sense.
And present is a synonym of current, thus "present working directory" means the same. JustToHelp ( talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
Note that the Debian User Reference Manual is obsolete (as said on the page). Its reliability is questionable.
Vincent Lefèvre ( talk) 22:51, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
pwd prints working directory name (END. next section is format)... pwd (END. next section is description)... pwd prints the working (or current) directory, from where the request was initiated, as an absolute path from the root. (END. next section is options)... none (END. next section is notes)... none
What obsolete means is that "it is very old" and not current. All that it says is that the manual WAS present and valid at an older time. As such, is just another sample of the same concept: "present" also means "current". JustToHelp ( talk) 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
I started a new section because the previous sections were so incredibly confusing and hard to make sense of. pwd means "present working directory". I know because I learned UNIX back when the utilities were being created, and I clearly remember it meaning "present working directory". BTW, the man page examples do NOT say "print working directory". So whoever used the man page as "proof" for "print working directory" just lost all credibility. Of course, the man page does not say "present working directory" either. So the man page is neutral on the meaning. But I remember what it meant around when the command was created. It would never have been called "print working directory". That's totally not Unix style. 174.24.228.1 ( talk) 05:11, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
The UNIX TIME-SHARING SYSTEM: UNIX PROGRAMMER’S MANUAL Seventh Edition, Volume 1 (January, 1979) by Bell labs says:
NAME pwd – working directory name SYNOPSIS pwd DESCRIPTION Pwd prints the pathname of the working (current) directory. SEE ALSO cd(1)
See article for this and various other UNIX and UNIX-like man pages.
Needless to say, those early UNIX versions really did mean "print", because the Datapoint 2200 glass TTY had not yet replaced the Teleprinter on most systems. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 04:47, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
References
-- Guy Macon ( talk) 22:48, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
Multics, generally regarded as the precedecesor to Unix, had a pwd command, which was the short name of print_wdir command [1] [2]. This appears to predate and be the inspiratin for the name of the Unix pwd command. While the Wikipedia entry for ls recognizes that the Unix ls command came from Multics, this page does not similarly recognize the Multics precedent for the pwd command. This Multics pwd/print_wdir equivalence also provides support for pwd meaning "print working directory". I propose that Multics be added to the "Operating System" list in the sidebar and mentioned as the parent implementation in the "Implementation" section.
-- Chris Tyler ( talk) 04:25, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, this would be a good idea. Vincent Lefèvre ( talk) 11:37, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
References