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. — kenorb
– kenorb, Commented Jul 19, 2017 at 18:39

Anycorn · Accepted Answer · 2009-11-30 02:03:09Z

21

what shell? What operating system?

For starters try

man pwd
$PWD

answered Nov 30, 2009 at 2:03

Anycorn

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1 Comment

Roger Pate Over a year ago

And if you do want just the directory's name, instead of the full path, read man basename too.

glenn jackman · Accepted Answer · 2009-11-30 14:06:55Z

17

This, I believe, is the most portable way:

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

answered Nov 30, 2009 at 14:06

glenn jackman

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Comments

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 11:54:56Z

3

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

edited May 23, 2017 at 11:54

CommunityBot

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answered Nov 30, 2009 at 2:46

Pekka

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3 Comments

Mat Gessel Over a year ago

The question is about determining the script execution directory, but your answer is for determining the name / directory of the script file.

Pekka Over a year ago

@Mat indeed! Must have misunderstood back then. Deleting.

Marco Over a year ago

Could you add a little bit more information? See meta.stackexchange.com/questions/8231/…

ghostdog74 · Accepted Answer · 2009-11-30 03:11:17Z

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, 2009 at 3:11

ghostdog74

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