when getcwd() is called from within an output handler function, it returns an incorrect path. the path returned is valid, and seems to be a previously used working directory.

the following script demonstrates the problem:

<?
  header( "content-type: text/plain\n\n" );

  chdir( "c:\\" );

  function output_handler( $ob ) {
    //chdir( "d:\\" );
    $ob .= "2 - ".getcwd()."\n";
    return $ob;
  }

  ob_start( "output_handler" );

  print "1 - ".getcwd()."\n";
?>

the output from this script is:

1 - c:\
2 - c:\www\wwwroot\adammckaig.com

the second directory is valid, but totally unrelated to the demo script. the real oddity is that when the chdir( "d:\\" ); line is un-remmed, it works as expected:

1 - c:\
2 - d:\

but rem out the line again, and the output remains the same - but only for a minute or so! after about a minute, it has reset to the previous directory, c:\www\wwwroot\adammckaig.com! odd indeed.

i've tried the test script out on freebsd and linux web-servers, which both return the expected:

1 - /home/a/d/adammckaig/public_html/dev
2 - /home/a/d/adammckaig/public_html/dev

so the problem looks to be isolated to windows.