Paths

All applications, shell or not, run in a "working directory".

# Print the current working directory
pwd

# Same, but with the `PWD` environment variable
echo $PWD

The cd command changes the working directory.

# Create a directory at '/tmp/abc/def' and switch to it
mkdir -p /tmp/abc/def
cd /tmp/abc/def

Tip: You can cd - to move to the directory you were last in.

Relative and Absolute Paths

Paths without a top level root are interpreted to be relative to the current working directory.

• Linux / OS X: Root is / or ~.
• Windows: Root is usually a drive letter c:\.

cd /tmp
cd abc/def # relative to '/tmp'

Special Paths

# '.' (dot) is a path referring to the current working directory
pwd
cd . && pwd


# '..' (dot dot) is a path referring to the parent of the current directory
cd .. && pwd


# '~' (tilde) is a notation for "current user's home directory"
cd ~ && pwd


# '/tmp' is usually a file system that lives on memory.
# It gets wiped when you restart your computer.
cd /tmp