Haven't had the cycles to delve into this complete thread, but I finally
found a working solution for the shell reliably knowing "where" it is
with respect to the working directory by going through the proc
filesystem.

see https://github.com/tvraman/emacspeak/blob/master/lisp/emacspeak-comint.el#L551
-- 

Thanks,

--Raman
♈ Id: kg:/m/0285kf1  🦮