Question

My homework question given is:

How can you print the path of the current directory (working
directory) and how can you use it as a variable?

The first part of the question is easily answered: By using pwd.

But how can I use the output as a variable?

Answer 1

In bash, you can execute a command and obtain the output using backticks, for example

paul@paul-laptop:~$ WORKING_DIRECTORY=`pwd`
paul@paul-laptop:~$ echo $WORKING_DIRECTORY
/home/paul

There is an alternate syntax too, using a dollar sign and brackets – WORKING_DIRECTORY=$(pwd)