Variable that stores filename it is in

Question

Is there a way to store a filename in a variable where the variable argument is written? Instead of hardcoding the filename, i would want the variable to know which file its in and store the name of the file in a variable.

In `bash`, `$0` gives the name of the shell or shell script that is running, if that helps. — leekaiinthesky, Feb 16 '17 at 02:13
Seems to be what I need but it displays filename the same way it was called; relative or absolute. How would this behave in cron? — Andy, Feb 16 '17 at 02:54

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:01

dirname $0 will give the directory relative to how it was called, so you need to get the expanded path like this:

FULLPATH=$( cd $(dirname $0); pwd)

basename $0 will give the shell script name so

SHORTNAME=$(basename $0)

$FULLPATH/$SHORTNAME  # is the fully qualified location of the current script.

The full path name is discussed as the most frequent bash question: Getting the source directory of a Bash script from within

Variable that stores filename it is in

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