pwd() reflects the actual directory and not symbolic link

[Daniel J Sebald]

I've noticed for years that whenever a directory is specified in Octave, 
be it in the File Browser directory showing the files, or be it messages 
that dbFUNC displays about the current line position, etc. that it is 
always the real directory.  I never thought much about it, but I'm now 
wondering why not make an attempt to reflect the "working directory" 
that the user launches from or selects in the navigating file dialogs? 
From the user's perspective, I'm thinking s/he'd like to see the "link" 
version of the directories.

To illustrate, here's a simple example.

@linux ~ $ mkdir realdir
@linux ~ $ ln -s realdir linkdir
@linux ~ $ cd linkdir
@linux ~/linkdir $ pwd
/home/djs/linkdir
@linux ~/linkdir $ readlink -f .
/home/djs/realdir
@linux ~/linkdir $ /usr/local/src/octave/build1/run-octave --gui&

In the above, I showed how system commands can give both the linked 
version of the path and the real path.  If there were script files in 
this directory, readlink -f would accept "filename.m".

After having launched Octave above, first notice that the directory of 
the "File Browser" display "realdir" rather than "linkdir".  I launched 
from "linkdir".  Second, note the following:

>> pwd
ans = /home/djs/realdir
>> system pwd
/home/djs/linkdir
ans = 0

Any thoughts?  Is it even possible to reconstruct the link path from 
within the C++ program?

Dan