Finding current working dir path

UNIX for Beginners Q & A UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers
1

Hi Folks,

In a Unix (ksh) script, is there a way to determine the current working directory path of another logged-in user? Of course, I can use "pwd" to find my own path. But, how do I find it for another active user?

Thanks for any input you can provide. LY

2

I'm not sure how you would do it in a script, or where exactly you could get the info from... maybe awk or grep... but you can get a user's current directory through finger.

Hope that helps... maybe someone else knows how to get it through a script for sure. :confused:

3

Thanks for replying ober.

"finger" appears to only provide the logged-in users home directory and not the current working directory path they're in.
But, thanks for replying anyway. LY

Any other great ideas out there?

4

There is a freeware program called "lsof" that can do this. Bear in mind that the user can be running several programs, each with a different current working directory. So you you will need to find a pid of a process that you're interested in. Then "lsof -p $pid" will show all files open by that process. And the current directory will have "cwd" in the FD column.

5

my bad... that was before my caffine jolt for the morning... what was I thinking??? :confused:

6

Perderabo,

Sounds great. Thanks much. I'll give it a shot.

Ober,

No problem. If I had a nickle for every "bad morning" I've had I'd be a very rich man.

Thanks all. LY:D

7

Perderabo,

Thanks much. Sounds like that will work great. I'll give it a shot.

Ober5861

If I had a nickel for every "bad morning" I've had, I'd be a very wealthy guy.

Thanks all. LY