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Directories: current, HOME, and /home
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-IAN! idallen@ncf.ca

Some people are still confused about:

- "your HOME directory"
  - the directory given to you by the system administrator and into which
    you are placed when you first log in
  - this is the directory you go to when you type "cd" with no arguments
  - the name of your home directory is available in the shell keyword
    variable named "$HOME" (HOME is UPPER CASE)
  - on many Unix systems, your home directory is a directory under /home
    e.g. /home/abcd0001, /home/zyxw0002, etc.; but, this is not always true

- /home
  - a pathname (probably a directory) under the root directory, named "home"
  - this is NOT your HOME directory; it is (usually) a directory named /home
  - (/home might be a file name, not a directory; but, this is rare)
  - some other names (directories) under root are /etc, /bin, and /usr

- "current directory"
  - the directory that your shell (or any Unix process) is currently in
  - relative pathnames are relative to this current directory
  - the name of this directory is always "." (dot)
  - the current directory of a shell can be changed by using the "cd" command
  - every process has its own current directory; changing current directory in
    one process does not change it for other processes
  - the current directory is passed on to child processes when they are first
    started (e.g. to shell scripts that you invoke)
  - changing directories inside a shell script will not affect the parent
    process that called the shell script (different processes)

Problem: "Put the date into a file out.txt in the current directory."
Solution:  date >out.txt

Problem: "Put the date into a file out.txt in your HOME directory."
Solution:  date >"$HOME"/out.txt

Problem: "List the names (including hidden names) in the /home directory."
Solution:  ls -a /home