I have a Bash script that needs to know its full path. I'm trying to find a broadly-compatible way of doing that without ending up with relative or funky-looking paths. I only need to support Bash, not sh, csh, etc.
What I've found so far:
The accepted answer to Getting the source directory of a Bash script from within addresses getting the path of the script via dirname $0
, which is fine, but that may return a relative path (like .
), which is a problem if you want to change directories in the script and have the path still point to the script's directory. Still, dirname
will be part of the puzzle.
The accepted answer to Bash script absolute path with OS X (OS X specific, but the answer works regardless) gives a function that will test to see if $0
looks relative and if so will pre-pend $PWD
to it. But the result can still have relative bits in it (although overall it's absolute) — for instance, if the script is t
in the directory /usr/bin
and you're in /usr
and you type bin/../bin/t
to run it (yes, that's convoluted), you end up with /usr/bin/../bin
as the script's directory path. Which works, but...
The readlink
solution on this page, which looks like this:
# Absolute path to this script. /home/user/bin/foo.sh
SCRIPT=$(readlink -f $0)
# Absolute path this script is in. /home/user/bin
SCRIPTPATH=`dirname $SCRIPT`
But readlink
isn't POSIX and apparently the solution relies on GNU's readlink
where BSD's won't work for some reason (I don't have access to a BSD-like system to check).
So, various ways of doing it, but they all have their caveats.
What would be a better way? Where "better" means:
I have used the following approach successfully for a while (not on OS X though), and it only uses a shell built-in and handles the 'source foobar.sh' case as far as I have seen.
One issue with the (hastily put together) example code below is that the function uses $PWD which may or may not be correct at the time of the function call. So that needs to be handled.
#!/bin/bash
function canonical_path() {
# Handle relative vs absolute path
[ ${1:0:1} == '/' ] && x=$1 || x=$PWD/$1
# Change to dirname of x
cd ${x%/*}
# Combine new pwd with basename of x
echo $(pwd -P)/${x##*/}
cd $OLDPWD
}
echo $(canonical_path "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")
type [
type cd
type echo
type pwd
One liner
`dirname $(realpath $0)`
It does not use the -f
option in readlink, and it should therefore work on BSD/Mac OS X.
.
dot operator)foo->dir1/dir2/bar bar->./../doe doe->script
I am looking for corner cases where this code does not work. Please let me know.
pushd . > /dev/null
SCRIPT_PATH="${BASH_SOURCE[0]}";
while([ -h "${SCRIPT_PATH}" ]); do
cd "`dirname "${SCRIPT_PATH}"`"
SCRIPT_PATH="$(readlink "`basename "${SCRIPT_PATH}"`")";
done
cd "`dirname "${SCRIPT_PATH}"`" > /dev/null
SCRIPT_PATH="`pwd`";
popd > /dev/null
echo "srcipt=[${SCRIPT_PATH}]"
echo "pwd =[`pwd`]"
The script must be on disk somewhere. Let it be over a network. If you try to run this script from a PIPE it will not work
wget -o /dev/null -O - http://host.domain/dir/script.sh |bash
Technically speaking, it is undefined. Practically speaking, there is no sane way to detect this. (A co-process can not access the environment of the parent.)
If we use Bash I believe this is the most convenient way as it doesn't require calls to any external commands:
THIS_PATH="${BASH_SOURCE[0]}";
THIS_DIR=$(dirname $THIS_PATH)
Yet another way to do this:
shopt -s extglob
selfpath=$0
selfdir=${selfpath%%+([!/])}
while [[ -L "$selfpath" ]];do
selfpath=$(readlink "$selfpath")
if [[ ! "$selfpath" =~ ^/ ]];then
selfpath=${selfdir}${selfpath}
fi
selfdir=${selfpath%%+([!/])}
done
echo $selfpath $selfdir
The accepted solution has the inconvenient (for me) to not be "source-able":
if you call it from a "source ../../yourScript
", $0
would be "bash
"!
The following function (for bash >= 3.0) gives me the right path, however the script might be called (directly or through source
, with an absolute or a relative path):
(by "right path", I mean the full absolute path of the script being called, even when called from another path, directly or with "source
")
#!/bin/bash
echo $0 executed
function bashscriptpath() {
local _sp=$1
local ascript="$0"
local asp="$(dirname $0)"
#echo "b1 asp '$asp', b1 ascript '$ascript'"
if [[ "$asp" == "." && "$ascript" != "bash" && "$ascript" != "./.bashrc" ]] ; then asp="${BASH_SOURCE[0]%/*}"
elif [[ "$asp" == "." && "$ascript" == "./.bashrc" ]] ; then asp=$(pwd)
else
if [[ "$ascript" == "bash" ]] ; then
ascript=${BASH_SOURCE[0]}
asp="$(dirname $ascript)"
fi
#echo "b2 asp '$asp', b2 ascript '$ascript'"
if [[ "${ascript#/}" != "$ascript" ]]; then asp=$asp ;
elif [[ "${ascript#../}" != "$ascript" ]]; then
asp=$(pwd)
while [[ "${ascript#../}" != "$ascript" ]]; do
asp=${asp%/*}
ascript=${ascript#../}
done
elif [[ "${ascript#*/}" != "$ascript" ]]; then
if [[ "$asp" == "." ]] ; then asp=$(pwd) ; else asp="$(pwd)/${asp}"; fi
fi
fi
eval $_sp="'$asp'"
}
bashscriptpath H
export H=${H}
The key is to detect the "source
" case and to use ${BASH_SOURCE[0]}
to get back the actual script.
I'm surprised that the realpath
command hasn't been mentioned here. My understanding is that it is widely portable / ported.
Your initial solution becomes:
SCRIPT=`realpath $0`
SCRIPTPATH=`dirname $SCRIPT`
And to leave symbolic links unresolved per your preference:
SCRIPT=`realpath -s $0`
SCRIPTPATH=`dirname $SCRIPT`
Considering this issue again: there is a very popular solution that is referenced within this thread that has its origin here:
DIR="$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" && pwd )"
I have stayed away from this solution because of the use of dirname - it can present cross-platform difficulties, particularly if a script needs to be locked down for security reasons. But as a pure Bash alternative, how about using:
DIR="$( cd "$( echo "${BASH_SOURCE[0]%/*}" )" && pwd )"
Would this be an option?
Just for the hell of it I've done a bit of hacking on a script that does things purely textually, purely in Bash. I hope I caught all the edge cases.
Note that the ${var//pat/repl}
that I mentioned in the other answer doesn't work since you can't make it replace only the shortest possible match, which is a problem for replacing /foo/../
as e.g. /*/../
will take everything before it, not just a single entry. And since these patterns aren't really regexes I don't see how that can be made to work. So here's the nicely convoluted solution I came up with, enjoy. ;)
By the way, let me know if you find any unhandled edge cases.
#!/bin/bash
canonicalize_path() {
local path="$1"
OIFS="$IFS"
IFS=$'/'
read -a parts < <(echo "$path")
IFS="$OIFS"
local i=${#parts[@]}
local j=0
local back=0
local -a rev_canon
while (($i > 0)); do
((i--))
case "${parts[$i]}" in
""|.) ;;
..) ((back++));;
*) if (($back > 0)); then
((back--))
else
rev_canon[j]="${parts[$i]}"
((j++))
fi;;
esac
done
while (($j > 0)); do
((j--))
echo -n "/${rev_canon[$j]}"
done
echo
}
canonicalize_path "/.././..////../foo/./bar//foo/bar/.././bar/../foo/bar/./../..//../foo///bar/"
Perhaps the accepted answer to the following question may be of help.
How can I get the behavior of GNU's readlink -f on a Mac?
Given that you just want to canonicalize the name you get from concatenating $PWD
and $0
(assuming that $0
is not absolute to begin with), just use a series of regex replacements along the line of abs_dir=${abs_dir//\/.\//\/}
and such.
Yes, I know it looks horrible, but it'll work and is pure Bash.
Use:
SCRIPT_PATH=$(dirname `which $0`)
which
prints to standard output the full path of the executable that would have been executed when the passed argument had been entered at the shell prompt (which is what $0 contains)
dirname
strips the non-directory suffix from a file name.
Hence you end up with the full path of the script, no matter if the path was specified or not.
You may try to define the following variable:
CWD="$(cd -P -- "$(dirname -- "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" && pwd -P)"
Or you can try the following function in Bash:
realpath () {
[[ $1 = /* ]] && echo "$1" || echo "$PWD/${1#./}"
}
This function takes one argument. If the argument already has an absolute path, print it as it is, otherwise print $PWD
variable + filename argument (without ./
prefix).
Related:
Bourne shell (sh
) compliant way:
SCRIPT_HOME=`dirname $0 | while read a; do cd $a && pwd && break; done`
Simply:
BASEDIR=$(readlink -f $0 | xargs dirname)
Fancy operators are not needed.
We have placed our own product realpath-lib on GitHub for free and unencumbered community use.
Shameless plug but with this Bash library you can:
get_realpath <absolute|relative|symlink|local file>
This function is the core of the library:
function get_realpath() {
if [[ -f "$1" ]]
then
# file *must* exist
if cd "$(echo "${1%/*}")" &>/dev/null
then
# file *may* not be local
# exception is ./file.ext
# try 'cd .; cd -;' *works!*
local tmppwd="$PWD"
cd - &>/dev/null
else
# file *must* be local
local tmppwd="$PWD"
fi
else
# file *cannot* exist
return 1 # failure
fi
# reassemble realpath
echo "$tmppwd"/"${1##*/}"
return 0 # success
}
It doesn't require any external dependencies, just Bash 4+. Also contains functions to get_dirname
, get_filename
, get_stemname
and validate_path validate_realpath
. It's free, clean, simple and well documented, so it can be used for learning purposes too, and no doubt can be improved. Try it across platforms.
Update: After some review and testing we have replaced the above function with something that achieves the same result (without using dirname, only pure Bash) but with better efficiency:
function get_realpath() {
[[ ! -f "$1" ]] && return 1 # failure : file does not exist.
[[ -n "$no_symlinks" ]] && local pwdp='pwd -P' || local pwdp='pwd' # do symlinks.
echo "$( cd "$( echo "${1%/*}" )" 2>/dev/null; $pwdp )"/"${1##*/}" # echo result.
return 0 # success
}
This also includes an environment setting no_symlinks
that provides the ability to resolve symlinks to the physical system. By default it keeps symlinks intact.
Answering this question very late, but I use:
SCRIPT=$( readlink -m $( type -p $0 )) # Full path to script
BASE_DIR=`dirname ${SCRIPT}` # Directory script is run in
NAME=`basename ${SCRIPT}` # Actual name of script even if linked
As realpath is not installed per default on my Linux system, the following works for me:
SCRIPT="$(readlink --canonicalize-existing "$0")"
SCRIPTPATH="$(dirname "$SCRIPT")"
$SCRIPT
will contain the real file path to the script and $SCRIPTPATH
the real path of the directory containing the script.
Before using this read the comments of this answer.
Try this:
cd $(dirname $([ -L $0 ] && readlink -f $0 || echo $0))
More simply, this is what works for me:
MY_DIR=`dirname $0`
source $MY_DIR/_inc_db.sh
The simplest way that I have found to get a full canonical path in Bash is to use cd
and pwd
:
ABSOLUTE_PATH="$(cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" && pwd)/$(basename "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")"
Using ${BASH_SOURCE[0]}
instead of $0
produces the same behavior regardless of whether the script is invoked as <name>
or source <name>
.
Easy to read? Below is an alternative. It ignores symlinks
#!/bin/bash
currentDir=$(
cd $(dirname "$0")
pwd
)
echo -n "current "
pwd
echo script $currentDir
Since I posted the above answer a couple years ago, I've evolved my practice to using this linux specific paradigm, which properly handles symlinks:
ORIGIN=$(dirname $(readlink -f $0))
I just had to revisit this issue today and found Get the source directory of a Bash script from within the script itself:
DIR="$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" && pwd )"
There's more variants at the linked answer, e.g. for the case where the script itself is a symlink.
Source: Stackoverflow.com