3 ms·

I don't like the abbreviation "pwd" at all, mainly because it looks too much like "password" which is also often abbreviated to "pwd". I prefer "cwd" which woul

I don't like the abbreviation "pwd" at all, mainly because it looks too much like "password" which is also often abbreviated to "pwd". I prefer "cwd" which would unambiguously mean the Current Working Directory. Thinking more about that though, "cd" in the shell universally means "change (the current working) directory" but can also possibly mean the "current directory" as well (and DOS/Windows "cd" without arguments does print the current working directory). Note that similar abbreviations like "md" and "rd" are not as universal, as they are "mkdir" and "rmdir" in *nixes (for the good reason).

ben509 6y ago
Well, if we ever rewrite Unix, we can just go with "wd". Because we know it's reading the current or present value, like any other command that reads a value. And of course we're going to print it, that's the natural thing to do.
- johnr2 6y ago
  > if we ever rewrite Unix, we can just go with "wd" Thus confusing anyone who uses the 'wd' hard disk driver. https://man.openbsd.org/wd https://man.openbsd.org/wd
- arexxbifs 6y ago
  They sort of did rewrite Unix and it's called pwd there, too. :) https://9p.io/magic/man2html/1/pwd https://9p.io/magic/man2html/1/pwd
Joker_vD 6y ago
DOS actually has "chdir" as another name for "cd". And of course, the POSIX interface for changing and querying the working directory are wonderfully consistently named chdir and getwd (or getcwd, where "c" stands for something).
- jle17 6y ago
  Anncient Unix also had chdir as the command name for cd. If I'm not mistaken it was changed to cd for v7 with the Bourne shell replacing the previous shell.
- forgotpwd16 6y ago
  Wouldn't `setwd` (used by R alongside `getwd`) be a more consistent name?
jle17 6y ago
Yes when reading the title I thought of <pwd.h> for reading passwd rather than of the command/variable. Also it's already called cwd in other places (like in /proc, at least on Linux) so that would be more consistent.

ben509 6y ago

Well, if we ever rewrite Unix, we can just go with "wd". Because we know it's reading the current or present value, like any other command that reads a value. And of course we're going to print it, that's the natural thing to do.

johnr2 6y ago
> if we ever rewrite Unix, we can just go with "wd" Thus confusing anyone who uses the 'wd' hard disk driver. https://man.openbsd.org/wd https://man.openbsd.org/wd
arexxbifs 6y ago
They sort of did rewrite Unix and it's called pwd there, too. :) https://9p.io/magic/man2html/1/pwd https://9p.io/magic/man2html/1/pwd

Joker_vD 6y ago

DOS actually has "chdir" as another name for "cd". And of course, the POSIX interface for changing and querying the working directory are wonderfully consistently named chdir and getwd (or getcwd, where "c" stands for something).

jle17 6y ago
Anncient Unix also had chdir as the command name for cd. If I'm not mistaken it was changed to cd for v7 with the Bourne shell replacing the previous shell.
forgotpwd16 6y ago
Wouldn't `setwd` (used by R alongside `getwd`) be a more consistent name?

jle17 6y ago

Yes when reading the title I thought of <pwd.h> for reading passwd rather than of the command/variable. Also it's already called cwd in other places (like in /proc, at least on Linux) so that would be more consistent.