Command Reference Guide

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STANDARD Printed by: Nora Chuang [nchuang] STANDARD
/build/1111/BRICK/man1/!!!intro.1
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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 directory.
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 vari-
able. 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 individualshell 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 command.
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
International Code Set Support
Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported.
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
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 vari-
able, in the order listed. The new working directory is set to the first matching direc-
tory 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.
RETURN VALUE
Upon completion, cd exits with one of the following values:
Section 1−−66 − 1 − HP-UX Release 11i: December 2000
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