GETCWD

Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (2)
Updated: 2003-03-28
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NAME

getcwd - get current working directory

SYNOPSIS

/*
 * This page documents the getcwd(2) system call, which
 * is not defined in any user-space header files; you should
 * use getcwd(3) defined in <unistd.h> instead in applications.
 */

long getcwd(char *buf, unsigned long size);

DESCRIPTION

The getcwd() function copies an absolute pathname of the current working directory to the array pointed to by buf, which is of length size.

If the current absolute path name would require a buffer longer than size elements, -1 is returned, and errno is set to ERANGE; an application should check for this error, and allocate a larger buffer if necessary.

If buf is NULL, the behaviour of getcwd() is undefined.

RETURN VALUE

-1 on failure (for example, if the current directory is not readable), with errno set accordingly, and the number of characters stored in buf on success. The contents of the array pointed to by buf is undefined on error.

Note that this return value differs from the getcwd(3) library function, which returns NULL on failure and the address of buf on success.

ERRORS

ENOMEM: if user memory cannot be mapped
ENOENT: if directory does not exist (i.e. it has been deleted)
ERANGE: if not enough space available for storing the path
EFAULT: if memory access violation occurs while copying

CONFORMING TO

The getcwd system call is Linux specific, use the getcwd C library function for portability.