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 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 executed, 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 command.

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 

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.
>0: An error occurred. The working directory remains unchanged.

STANDARDS CONFORMANCE

cd: SVID2, SVID3, XPG2, XPG3, XPG4, POSIX.2