What s the best way to determine the location of the current PowerShell script

Question

Whenever I need to reference a common module or script  I like to use paths relative to the current script file  That way  my script can always find other scripts in the library   So  what is the best  standard way of determining the directory of the current script  Currently  I m doing    MyDir    System IO Path   GetDirectoryName  myInvocation MyCommand Definition    I know in modules   psm1  you can use  PSScriptRoot to get this information  but that doesn t get set in regular scripts  i e   ps1 files    What s the canonical way to get the current PowerShell script file s location

User · Answer

It took me a while to develop something that took the accepted answer and turned it into a robust function.

I am not sure about others, but I work in an environment with machines on both PowerShell version 2 and 3, so I needed to handle both. The following function offers a graceful fallback:

Function Get-PSScriptRoot
{
    $ScriptRoot = ""

    Try
    {
        $ScriptRoot = Get-Variable -Name PSScriptRoot -ValueOnly -ErrorAction Stop
    }
    Catch
    {
        $ScriptRoot = Split-Path $script:MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path
    }

    Write-Output $ScriptRoot
}

It also means that the function refers to the Script scope rather than the parent's scope as outlined by Michael Sorens in one of his blog posts.

User · Answer

function func1          inv    Get-Variable MyInvocation -Scope 1  Value      inv MyCommand   Format-List          Path1   Split-Path  inv scriptname    Write-Host  Path1    function Main         func1    Main

User · Answer

For PowerShell 3 0   PSCommandPath     Contains the full path and file name of the script that is being run       This variable is valid in all scripts    The function is then   function Get-ScriptDirectory       Split-Path -Parent  PSCommandPath

User · Answer

You might also consider  split-path -parent  psISE CurrentFile Fullpath if any of the other methods fail   In particular  if you run a file to load a bunch of functions and then execute those functions with-in the ISE shell  or if you run-selected   it seems the Get-Script-Directory function as above doesn t work

User · Answer

If you are creating a V2 Module  you can use an automatic variable called  PSScriptRoot   From PS   Help automatic variable    PSScriptRoot        Contains the directory from which the script module is being executed         This variable allows scripts to use the module path to access other        resources

User · Answer

I use the automatic variable  ExecutionContext   It will work from PowerShell 2 and later     ExecutionContext SessionState Path GetUnresolvedProviderPathFromPSPath             ExecutionContext          Contains an EngineIntrinsics object that represents the          execution context of the Windows PowerShell host  You can          use this variable to find the execution objects that are          available to cmdlets

User · Answer

For PowerShell 3   function Get-ScriptDirectory       if   psise            Split-Path  psise CurrentFile FullPath           else            global PSScriptRoot           I ve placed this function in my profile  It works in ISE using F8 Run Selection too

User · Answer

Very similar to already posted answers  but piping seems more PowerShell-like    PSCommandPath   Split-Path -Parent

User · Answer

Using pieces from all of these answers and the comments  I put this together for anyone who sees this question in the future  It covers all of the situations listed in the other answers        If using ISE     if   psISE             ScriptPath   Split-Path -Parent  psISE CurrentFile FullPath       If Using PowerShell 3 or greater       elseif  PSVersionTable PSVersion Major -gt 3             ScriptPath    PSScriptRoot       If using PowerShell 2 or lower       else            ScriptPath   split-path -parent  MyInvocation MyCommand Path

User · Answer

I found that the older solutions posted here didn t work for me on PowerShell V5  I came up with this   try        scriptPath    PSScriptRoot     if    scriptPath                if   psISE                         scriptPath   Split-Path -Parent -Path  psISE CurrentFile FullPath                   else               Write-Host -ForegroundColor Red  Cannot resolve script file s path              exit 1                   catch       Write-Host -ForegroundColor Red  Caught Exception     Error 0  Exception Message       exit 2    Write-Host  Path   scriptPath

User · Answer

PowerShell 3     This is an automatic variable set to the current file s module s directory  PSScriptRoot   PowerShell 2  Prior to PowerShell 3  there was not a better way than querying the MyInvocation MyCommand Definition property for general scripts  I had the following line at the top of essentially every PowerShell script I had    scriptPath   split-path -parent  MyInvocation MyCommand Definition

User · Answer

If you want to load modules from a path relative to where the script runs  such as from a  quot lib quot  subfolder quot   you need to use one of the following   PSScriptRoot which works when invoked as a script  such as via the PowerShell command  psISE CurrentFile FullPath which works when you re running inside ISE But if you re in neither  and just typing away within a PowerShell shell  you can use  pwd Path You can could assign one of the three to a variable called  base depending on the environment you re running under  like so   base   if   psISE   Split-Path -Path  psISE CurrentFile FullPath  else    if   global PSScriptRoot Length -gt 0    global PSScriptRoot  else   global pwd Path      Then in your scripts  you can use it like so  Import-Module  base lib someConstants psm1 Import-Module  base lib myCoolPsModule1 psm1  etc

User · Answer

Maybe I m missing something here    but if you want the present working directory you can just use this   Get-Location  Path for a string  or Get-Location for an object   Unless you re referring to something like this  which I understand after reading the question again   function Get-Script-Directory        scriptInvocation    Get-Variable MyInvocation -Scope 1  Value     return Split-Path  scriptInvocation MyCommand Path

User · Answer

I always use this little snippet which works for PowerShell and ISE the same way     Set active path to script-location   path    MyInvocation MyCommand Path if    path         path    psISE CurrentFile Fullpath   if   path         path   Split-Path  path -Parent   Set-Location  path

User · Answer

I needed to know the script name and where it is executing from   Prefixing   global   to the MyInvocation structure returns the full path and script name when called from both the main script  and the main line of an imported  PSM1 library file   It also works from within a function in an imported library   After much fiddling around  I settled on using  global MyInvocation InvocationName  It works reliably with CMD launch  Run With Powershell  and the ISE  Both local and UNC launches return the correct path

[powershell] What's the best way to determine the location of the current PowerShell script?

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