Man Linux: Main Page and Category List

NAME

       cd - change the working directory

SYNOPSIS

       cd [-L | -P] [directory]

       cd -

DESCRIPTION

       The  cd utility shall change the working directory of the current shell
       execution environment (see Shell Execution Environment )  by  executing
       the  following  steps  in sequence. (In the following steps, the symbol
       curpath  represents  an  intermediate  value  used  to   simplify   the
       description  of  the algorithm used by cd. There is no requirement that
       curpath be made visible to the application.)

        1. If no directory operand is given and the HOME environment  variable
           is  empty  or  undefined,  the  default behavior is implementation-
           defined and no further steps shall be taken.

        2. If no directory operand is given and the HOME environment  variable
           is  set to a non-empty value, the cd utility shall behave as if the
           directory named in the HOME environment variable was  specified  as
           the directory operand.

        3. If the directory operand begins with a slash character, set curpath
           to the operand and proceed to step 7.

        4. If the first component of the directory operand is dot or  dot-dot,
           proceed to step 6.

        5. Starting  with  the first pathname in the colon-separated pathnames
           of CDPATH (see the ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES section) if  the  pathname
           is  non-null,  test  if the concatenation of that pathname, a slash
           character, and the directory operand  names  a  directory.  If  the
           pathname  is  null,  test  if  the  concatenation  of  dot, a slash
           character, and the operand names a directory. In  either  case,  if
           the  resulting  string  names an existing directory, set curpath to
           that string and proceed to step 7.   Otherwise,  repeat  this  step
           with  the  next  pathname  in  CDPATH until all pathnames have been
           tested.

        6. Set curpath to the string formed by the concatenation of the  value
           of PWD , a slash character, and the operand.

        7. If the -P option is in effect, the cd utility shall perform actions
           equivalent to the chdir() function, called with curpath as the path
           argument.  If  these  actions succeed, the PWD environment variable
           shall be set to  an  absolute  pathname  for  the  current  working
           directory  and  shall  not contain filename components that, in the
           context of pathname resolution, refer to a file  of  type  symbolic
           link.  If there is insufficient permission on the new directory, or
           on any parent of that directory, to determine the  current  working
           directory,   the   value   of   the  PWD  environment  variable  is
           unspecified. If the actions equivalent  to  chdir()  fail  for  any
           reason,  the  cd utility shall display an appropriate error message
           and not alter the PWD environment  variable.  Whether  the  actions
           equivalent  to  chdir()  succeed or fail, no further steps shall be
           taken.

        8. The curpath value shall then be  converted  to  canonical  form  as
           follows,  considering  each  component  from  beginning  to end, in
           sequence:

            a. Dot components and any slashes that separate them from the next
               component shall be deleted.

            b. For  each  dot-dot component, if there is a preceding component
               and it is neither root nor dot-dot,  the  preceding  component,
               all  slashes  separating  the preceding component from dot-dot,
               dot-dot and all slashes separating dot-dot from  the  following
               component shall be deleted.

            c. An  implementation may further simplify curpath by removing any
               trailing slash characters that are not  also  leading  slashes,
               replacing  multiple  non-leading  consecutive  slashes  with  a
               single slash, and replacing three or more leading slashes  with
               a  single  slash. If, as a result of this canonicalization, the
               curpath variable is null, no further steps shall be taken.

        9. The cd utility shall then perform actions equivalent to the chdir()
           function called with curpath as the path argument. If these actions
           failed for any reason, the cd utility shall display an  appropriate
           error  message  and  no  further  steps  shall  be  taken.  The PWD
           environment variable shall be set to curpath.

       If, during the execution  of  the  above  steps,  the  PWD  environment
       variable  is  changed,  the  OLDPWD  environment variable shall also be
       changed to the value of the old working directory (that is the  current
       working directory immediately prior to the call to cd).

OPTIONS

       The  cd  utility  shall  conform  to  the  Base  Definitions  volume of
       IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.

       The following options shall be supported by the implementation:

       -L     Handle the operand dot-dot logically; symbolic  link  components
              shall  not  be  resolved before dot-dot components are processed
              (see steps 8. and 9. in the DESCRIPTION).

       -P     Handle the operand dot-dot physically; symbolic link  components
              shall  be  resolved before dot-dot components are processed (see
              step 7. in the DESCRIPTION).

       If both -L and -P options are specified,  the  last  of  these  options
       shall  be  used  and  all  others  ignored.  If  neither  -L  nor -P is
       specified, the operand shall be  handled  dot-dot  logically;  see  the
       DESCRIPTION.

OPERANDS

       The following operands shall be supported:

       directory
              An  absolute  or  relative  pathname of the directory that shall
              become the  new  working  directory.  The  interpretation  of  a
              relative  pathname by cd depends on the -L option and the CDPATH
              and PWD environment variables. If directory is an empty  string,
              the results are unspecified.

       -      When  a  hyphen is used as the operand, this shall be equivalent
              to the command:

              cd "$OLDPWD" && pwd

       which changes to the previous working directory  and  then  writes  its
       name.

STDIN

       Not used.

INPUT FILES

       None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of cd:

       CDPATH A  colon-separated  list of pathnames that refer to directories.
              The cd utility shall use this list in its attempt to change  the
              directory,  as  described in the DESCRIPTION. An empty string in
              place of a directory pathname represents the current  directory.
              If CDPATH is not set, it shall be treated as if it were an empty
              string.

       HOME   The name of the directory, used when  no  directory  operand  is
              specified.

       LANG   Provide  a  default value for the internationalization variables
              that are unset or null. (See  the  Base  Definitions  volume  of
              IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,    Section    8.2,    Internationalization
              Variables for the precedence of  internationalization  variables
              used to determine the values of locale categories.)

       LC_ALL If  set  to a non-empty string value, override the values of all
              the other internationalization variables.

       LC_CTYPE
              Determine the locale for  the  interpretation  of  sequences  of
              bytes  of  text  data as characters (for example, single-byte as
              opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments).

       LC_MESSAGES
              Determine the locale that should be used to  affect  the  format
              and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error.

       NLSPATH
              Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of
              LC_MESSAGES .

       OLDPWD A pathname of the previous working directory, used by cd -.

       PWD    This variable shall be set as specified in the  DESCRIPTION.  If
              an application sets or unsets the value of PWD , the behavior of
              cd is unspecified.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

       Default.

STDOUT

       If a non-empty directory name from CDPATH is used, or if cd - is  used,
       an  absolute  pathname of the new working directory shall be written to
       the standard output as follows:

              "%s\n", <new directory>

       Otherwise, there shall be no output.

STDERR

       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES

       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

       None.

EXIT STATUS

       The following exit values shall be returned:

        0     The directory was successfully changed.

       >0     An error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

       The working directory shall remain unchanged.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

       Since cd affects the current shell execution environment, it is  always
       provided  as a shell regular built-in. If it is called in a subshell or
       separate utility execution environment, such as one of the following:

              (cd /tmp)
              nohup cd
              find . -exec cd {} \;

       it does not affect the working directory of the caller’s environment.

       The user must have execute (search) permission in directory in order to
       change to it.

EXAMPLES

       None.

RATIONALE

       The use of the CDPATH was introduced in the System V shell.  Its use is
       analogous to the use of the PATH variable in the shell. The BSD C shell
       used a shell parameter cdpath for this purpose.

       A common extension when HOME is undefined is to get the login directory
       from the user database for the invoking user.  This does not  occur  on
       System V implementations.

       Some  historical  shells,  such  as the KornShell, took special actions
       when the directory name contained a dot-dot  component,  selecting  the
       logical  parent  of  the  directory,  rather  than  the  actual  parent
       directory; that is, it moved  up  one  level  toward  the  ’/’  in  the
       pathname,  remembering  what the user typed, rather than performing the
       equivalent of:

              chdir("..");

       In such a shell, the following commands would not  necessarily  produce
       equivalent output for all directories:

              cd .. && ls      ls ..

       This  behavior  is  now  the  default.  It  is  not consistent with the
       definition of dot-dot in most historical practice; that is, while  this
       behavior  has  been optionally available in the KornShell, other shells
       have  historically  not  supported  this  functionality.  The   logical
       pathname  is stored in the PWD environment variable when the cd utility
       completes and this value is used to construct the next  directory  name
       if cd is invoked with the -L option.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       Shell  Execution  Environment  ,  pwd , the System Interfaces volume of
       IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, chdir()

COPYRIGHT

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in  electronic  form
       from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technology
       -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX),  The  Open  Group  Base
       Specifications  Issue  6,  Copyright  (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of
       Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open  Group.  In  the
       event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
       The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group  Standard
       is  the  referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online
       at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .