cd.1 (2010 09)

c
cd(1) cd(1)
NAME
cd - change working directory
SYNOPSIS
cd [ directory ]
DESCRIPTION
If directory is not specified, the value of shell parameter
HOME is used as the new working directory. If
directory specifies a complete path starting with
/, .,or.., directory becomes the new working direc-
tory. If neither case applies,
cd tries to find the designated directory relative to one of the paths
specified by the CDPATH shell variable.
CDPATH has the same syntax as, and similar semantics to, the
PATH shell variable. cd must have execute (search) permission in directory .
cd exists only as a shell built-in command because a new process is created whenever a command is exe-
cuted, making cd useless if written and processed as a normal system command. Moreover, different
shells provide different implementations of
cd as a built-in utility. Features of
cd as described here
may not be supported by all the shells. Refer to individual shell manual entries for differences.
If
cd is called in a subshell or a separate utility execution environment such as:
find . -type d -exec cd {}; -exec foo {};
(which invokes foo on accessible directories) cd does not affect the current directory of the caller’s
environment. Another usage of cd as a stand-alone command is to obtain the exit status of the com-
mand.
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
International Code Set Support
Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported.
Environment Variables
The following environment variables affect the execution of
cd:
HOME The name of the home directory, used when no directory operand is specified.
CDPATH A colon-separated list of pathnames that refer to directories. If the directory
operand does not begin with a slash (/) character, and the first component is not dot
or dot-dot, cd searches for directory relative to each directory named in the
CDPATH variable, in the order listed. The new working directory is set to the first
matching directory found. An empty string in place of a directory pathname
represents the current directory. If CDPATH is not set, it is treated as if it was an
empty string.
EXAMPLES
Change the current working directory to the
HOME directory from any location in the file system:
cd
Change to new current working directory foo residing in the current directory:
cd foo
or
cd ./foo
Change to directory foobar residing in the current directory’s parent directory:
cd ../foobar
Change to the directory whose absolute pathname is /usr/local/lib/work.files:
cd /usr/local/lib/work.files
Change to the directory proj1/schedule/staffing/proposals relative to home directory:
cd $HOME/proj1/schedule/staffing/proposals
RETURN VALUE
Upon completion, cd exits with one of the following values:
0 The directory was successfully changed.
HP-UX 11i Version 3: September 2010 − 1 − Hewlett-Packard Company 1