Bash - running script as it was executed in its own folder

Question

I have a bash script called my-script.sh inside a folder 2 level up from the root where I want this script to be called/executed from

/folder1
    /folder2/
        - my-script.sh
        - do-it.sh

my-script.sh

#!/bin/bash
./do-it.sh

If I execute my-script.sh from the root folder it fails since it tries to find do-it.sh in the same folder.

folder1/folder2/my-script.sh: line 3: ./do-it.sh: No such file or directory

If I want to execute my-script.sh script properly I have to get into folder2 first and them execute it

cd /folder1/folder2
./my-script.sh

Is there a way to execute it from root folder as it was being executed from folder2?

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 01 '22 at 14:28

5

To make my scripts run anywhere I usually add this line to get the folder containing the script

script_folder="$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" && pwd )"
$script_folder/my-script.sh

answered Sep 01 '22 at 14:28

Charles G

1

Very neat solution. You may want to consider to `cd $script_folder` before executing `my-script.sh`, as then the context of `my-script.sh` is also inside `folder2` – Mime Sep 01 '22 at 14:34
I think you meant $script_folder/do-it.sh – VeryNiceArgumentException Sep 02 '22 at 07:06

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 02 '22 at 07:39

1

I found a short and simple solution using dirname $0

my-script.sh

#!/bin/bash
./$(dirname $0)/do-it.sh

answered Sep 02 '22 at 07:39

This is a simplified version of my answer above, it should mostly work. Be careful though : your version can break in a number of cases, see this other post https://stackoverflow.com/questions/59895/how-do-i-get-the-directory-where-a-bash-script-is-located-from-within-the-script – Charles G Sep 02 '22 at 08:33

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 02 '22 at 07:38

The simplest way to run a script from a certain directory is simply by mentioning the directory when running the script, so in your case:

Where-ever you are, you want to run the script as present in the /folder1/folder2 folder:

sh /folder1/folder2/my-script.sh

Where-ever you are, you want to run the script as present in the root folder:

sh /my-script.sh

As far as the do-it.sh is concerned: you can create a do-it.sh in your root folder, containing the following:

#!/bin/bash
sh /folder1/folder2/do-it.sh

I don't want edit the script if files are moved to another directory — VeryNiceArgumentException, Sep 02 '22 at 07:41

3 Answers3