How to get the current directory of the cmdlet being executed

Question

This should be a simple task  but I have seen several attempts on how to get the path to the directory where the executed cmdlet is located with mixed success  For instance  when I execute C  temp myscripts mycmdlet ps1 which has a settings file at C  temp myscripts settings xml I would like to be able to store C  temp myscripts in a variable within mycmdlet ps1   This is one solution which works  although a bit cumbersome     invocation    Get-Variable MyInvocation  Value  directorypath   Split-Path  invocation MyCommand Path  settingspath    directorypath     settings xml    Another one suggested this solution which only works on our test environment    settingspath      settings xml    I like the latter approach a lot and prefer it to having to parse the filepath as a parameter each time  but I can t get it to work on my development environment  What should I to do  Does it have something to do with how PowerShell is configured

User · Answer

Try this    WorkingDir   Convert-Path

User · Answer

The easiest method seems to be to use the following predefined variable     PSScriptRoot   about Automatic Variables and about Scripts both state      In PowerShell 2 0  this variable is valid only in script modules   psm1   Beginning in PowerShell 3 0  it is valid in all scripts    I use it like this     MyFileName    data txt    filebase   Join-Path  PSScriptRoot  MyFileName

User · Answer

Path is often null  This function is safer   function Get-ScriptDirectory        Invocation    Get-Variable MyInvocation -Scope 1  Value      if  Invocation PSScriptRoot                 Invocation PSScriptRoot            Elseif  Invocation MyCommand Path                Split-Path  Invocation MyCommand Path           else                Invocation InvocationName Substring 0  Invocation InvocationName LastIndexOf

User · Answer

Yes  that should work  But if you need to see the absolute path  this is all you need   Get-Item    FullName

User · Answer

If you just need the name of the current directory  you could do something like this     Get-Location    Get-Item  Name   Assuming you are working from C  Temp Location MyWorkingDirectory   Output  MyWorkingDirectory

User · Answer

I like the one-line solution      scriptDir   Split-Path -Path  MyInvocation MyCommand Definition -Parent

User · Answer

Most answers don t work when debugging in the following IDEs   PS-ISE  PowerShell ISE  VS Code  Visual Studio Code   Because in those the  PSScriptRoot is empty and Resolve-Path     and similars  will result in incorrect paths  Freakydinde s answer is the only one that resolves those situations  so I up-voted that  but I don t think the Set-Location in that answer is really what is desired  So I fixed that and made the code a little clearer   directorypath   if   PSScriptRoot     PSScriptRoot         elseif   psise    split-path  psise CurrentFile FullPath         elseif   psEditor    split-path  psEditor GetEditorContext   CurrentFile Path

User · Answer

You would think that using      as the path means that it s the invocation path  But not all the time  Example  if you use it inside a job ScriptBlock  In which case  it might point to  profile  Documents

User · Answer

To expand on  Cradle  s answer  you could also write a multi-purpose function that will get you the same result per the OP s question   Function Get-AbsolutePath         CmdletBinding        Param           parameter              Mandatory  false              ValueFromPipeline  true                     String  relativePath                 if  Test-Path -Path  relativePath            return  Get-Item -Path  relativePath  FullName -replace                 else           Write-Error -Message    relativePath  is not a valid path  -ErrorId 1 -ErrorAction Stop

User · Answer

this function will set the prompt location to script path  dealing with the differents way to get scriptpath between vscode  psise and pwd    function Set-CurrentLocation        currentPath    PSScriptRoot                                                                                                       AzureDevOps  Powershell     if    currentPath     currentPath   Split-Path  pseditor GetEditorContext   CurrentFile Path -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue         VSCode     if    currentPath     currentPath   Split-Path  psISE CurrentFile FullPath -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue                           PsISE      if   currentPath    Set-Location  currentPath

User · Answer

Try     Get-Location  path   or     pwd  path

User · Answer

In Powershell 3 and above you can simply use   PSScriptRoot

User · Answer

For what it s worth  to be a single-line solution  the below is a working solution for me     currFolderName    Get-Location  Path Substring  Get-Location  Path LastIndexOf      1    The 1 at the end is to ignore the     Thanks to the posts above using the Get-Location cmdlet

User · Answer

Get-Location will return the current location    Currentlocation   Get-Location

User · Answer

The reliable way to do this is just like you showed  MyInvocation MyCommand Path   Using relative paths will be based on  pwd  in PowerShell  the current directory for an application  or the current working directory for a  NET API   PowerShell v3    Use the automatic variable  PSScriptRoot

User · Answer

I had similar problems and it made me a lot of trouble since I am making programs written in PowerShell  full end user GUI applications  and I have a lot of files and resources I need to load from disk  From my experience  using   to represent current directory is unreliable  It should represent current working directory  but it often does not  It appears that PowerShell saves location from which PowerShell has been invoked inside    To be more precise  when PowerShell is first started  it starts  by default  inside your home user directory  That is usually directory of your user account  something like C  USERS YOUR USER NAME  After that  PowerShell changes directory to either directory from which you invoked it  or to directory where script you are executing is located before either presenting you with PowerShell prompt or running the script  But that happens after PowerShell app itself originally starts inside your home user directory   And   represents that initial directory inside which PowerShell started  So   only represents current directory in case if you invoked PowerShell from the wanted directory  If you later change directory in PowerShell code  change appears not to be reflected inside   in every case  In some cases   represents current working directory  and in others directory from which PowerShell  itself  not the script  has been invoked  what can lead to inconsistent results  For this reason I use invoker script  PowerShell script with single command inside  POWERSHELL  That will ensure that PowerShell is invoked from the wanted directory and thus make   represent current directory  But it only works if you do not change directory later in PowerShell code  In case of a script  I use invoker script which is similar to last one I mentioned  except it contains a file option  POWERSHELL -FILE DRIVE  PATH SCRIPT NAME PS1  That ensures that PowerShell is started inside current working directory   Simply clicking on script invokes PowerShell from your home user directory no matter where script is located  It results with current working directory being directory where script is located  but PowerShell invocation directory being C  USERS YOUR USER NAME  and with   returning one of these two directories depending on the situation  what is ridiculous   But to avoid all this fuss and using invoker script  you can simply use either  PWD or  PSSCRIPTROOT instead of   to represent current directory depending on weather you wish to represent current working directory or directory from which script has been invoked  And if you  for some reason  want to retrieve other of two directories which   returns  you can use  HOME   I personally just have invoker script inside root directory of my apps I develop with PowerShell which invokes my main app script  and simply remember to never ever change current working directory inside my source code of my app  so I never have to worry about this  and I can use   to represent current directory and to support relative file addressing in my applications without any problems  This should work in newer versions of PowerShell  newer than version 2

User · Answer

You can also use    Resolve-Path     Path   The part in brackets returns a PathInfo object    Available since PowerShell 2 0

[powershell] How to get the current directory of the cmdlet being executed

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