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$ PATH vs. pwd

An expert describes the difference between two shell commands, $ PATH and pwd.

Kenneth Milberg
What is the difference between "$ PATH" and "pwd"?

PATH is an environment variable that is usually put in your .profile, which indicates the directories that the shell will search to find the command that you typed in. Here is what you would typically see: 

$ echo $PATH 
/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/home/testuser:.

The pwd (print-working-directory) command will display the output of your current working directory. It is a build-in command on many shells.

This was last published in May 2007

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