How to detect the current directory in which I run my shell script?

Question

How may I detect the name of the directory (or better yet the entire path) in which my shell script is run?

For Bash, see: [Getting the source directory of a Bash script from within](https://stackoverflow.com/q/59895/55075). — kenorb, Jul 19 '17 at 18:39

score 21 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 30 '09 at 02:03

21

what shell? What operating system?

For starters try

man pwd
$PWD

answered Nov 30 '09 at 02:03

Anycorn

And if you do want just the directory's name, instead of the full path, read man basename too. – Nov 30 '09 at 02:46

score 17 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 30 '09 at 14:06

17

This, I believe, is the most portable way:

dir=$(cd -P -- "$(dirname -- "$0")" && pwd -P)

answered Nov 30 '09 at 14:06

glenn jackman

score 3 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:54

3

This is not as trivial as it looks like. Check out this question and this

edited May 23 '17 at 11:54

Community

answered Nov 30 '09 at 02:46

Pekka

The question is about determining the script execution directory, but your answer is for determining the name / directory of the script file. – Mat Gessel Mar 12 '17 at 19:44
@Mat indeed! Must have misunderstood back then. Deleting. – Pekka Mar 12 '17 at 21:22
Could you add a little bit more information? See https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/8231/are-answers-that-just-contain-links-elsewhere-really-good-answers – Marco May 05 '18 at 23:02

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 30 '09 at 03:11

0

alternative method

pid=$$
path=$(ps -eo pid,args| awk -vp=$pid '$1~p{print $3}')
case "$path" in
    ./* ) pwd;;
    * ) echo $path;;
esac

answered Nov 30 '09 at 03:11

ghostdog74

4 Answers4