Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi

i am in learning phase of unix.
i am not able to understand the difference between $PATH and $PWD
below the the output which i am getting .

Code:

$ echo $PATH 
/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/home/guest/khare/bin
$ echo $PWD
/home/guest/khare
$

Regards,
Scriptor

$PWD is the current working directory, also called cwd or wd, which is used on relative file paths -- those that do not begin with '/'.

$PATH is many directories separated by ':' characters. $PATH is used by the execvp() system call and its variations to search for commands, so you can run all the commands in /usr/bin like ls without typing /usr/bin/ls. Executable commands can be scripts or compiled programs, but must have execute permission to you and scripts must have a #! first line to designate the interpreter by full path and one optional parameter. The first directory with the right named executable wins, so order can be important. There are many similar variables, like MANPATH for finding man pages, using this notation.

There's no confusion, the two variables hold different values that represent different things, however if you need a trick to tell them apart, PATH is the path to be searched for executables when you invoke an executable without a full path from root whereas PWD is the Present Working Directory, simples