Change working directory in my current shell context when running Node script

Question

I am trying to change the working directory of my Node js script when it is run from a bin script  I have something like the following      usr bin env node process chdir   Users     When I then run this file with   bin nodefile  it exits  but the working directory of the current shell context has not changed  I have also tried shelljs  but that does not work either   What is the best way to do this  I understand it s working but it s just in a separate process

User · Answer

The correct way to change directories is actually with process.chdir(directory). Here's an example from the documentation:

console.log('Starting directory: ' + process.cwd());
try {
  process.chdir('/tmp');
  console.log('New directory: ' + process.cwd());
}
catch (err) {
  console.log('chdir: ' + err);
}

This is also testable in the Node.js REPL:

[monitor@s2 ~]$ node
> process.cwd()
'/home/monitor'
> process.chdir('../');
undefined
> process.cwd();
'/home'

User · Answer

Short answer  no  easy   way  but you can do something that serves your purpose   I ve done a similar tool  a small command that  given a description of a project  sets environment  paths  directories  etc    What I do is set-up everything and then spawn a shell with   spawn  bash     -i        cwd  new cwd    env  new env    stdio   inherit        After execution  you ll be on a shell with the new directory  and  in my case  environment   Of course you can change bash for whatever shell you prefer  The main differences with what you originally asked for are    There is an additional process  so    you have to write  exit  to come back  and then    after existing  all changes are undone    However  for me  that differences are desirable

User · Answer

What you are trying to do is not possible  The reason for this is that in a POSIX system  Linux  OSX  etc   a child process cannot modify the environment of a parent process  This includes modifying the parent process s working directory and environment variables   When you are on the commandline and you go to execute your Node script  your current process  bash  zsh  whatever  spawns a new process which has it s own environment  typically a copy of your current environment  it is possible to change this via system calls  but that s beyond the scope of this reply   allowing that process to do whatever it needs to do in complete isolation  When the subprocess exits  control is handed back to your shell s process  where the environment hasn t been affected   There are a lot of reasons for this  but for one  imagine that you executed a script in the background  via   foo js  amp   and as it ran  it started changing your working directory or overriding your PATH  That would be a nightmare   If you need to perform some actions that require changing your working directory of your shell  you ll need to write a function in your shell  For example  if you re running Bash  you could put this in your    bash profile   do cool thing       cd   Users    echo  Hey  I m in  PWD      and then this cool thing is doable     pwd  Users spike   do cool thing Hey  I m in  Users   pwd  Users   If you need to do more complex things in addition  you could always call out to your nodejs script from that function   This is the only way you can accomplish what you re trying to do

User · Answer

There is no built-in method for Node to change the CWD of the underlying shell running the Node process   You can change the current working directory of the Node process through the command process chdir     var process   require  process    process chdir           When the Node process exists  you will find yourself back in the CWD you started the process in

[javascript] Change working directory in my current shell context when running Node script

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