PowerShell Run command from script s directory

Question

I have a PowerShell script that does some stuff using the script   s current directory  So when inside that directory  running   script ps1 works correctly   Now I want to call that script from a different directory without changing the referencing directory of the script  So I want to call       dir script ps1 and still want that script to behave as it was called from inside its directory   How do I do that  or how do I modify a script so it can run from any directory

User · Answer

There are answers with big number of votes, but when I read your question, I thought you wanted to know the directory where the script is, not that where the script is running. You can get the information with powershell's auto variables

$PSScriptRoot - the directory where the script exists, not the target directory the script is running in
$PSCommandPath - the full path of the script

For example, I have $profile script that finds visual studio solution file and start it. I wanted to store the full path, once a solution file is started. But I wanted to save the file where the original script exists. So I used $PsScriptRoot.

User · Answer

If you re calling native apps  you need to worry about  Environment   CurrentDirectory not about PowerShell s  PWD current directory  For various reasons  PowerShell does not set the process  current working directory when you Set-Location or Push-Location  so you need to make sure you do so if you re running applications  or cmdlets  that expect it to be set   In a script  you can do this    CWD    Environment   CurrentDirectory  Push-Location  MyInvocation MyCommand Path  Environment   CurrentDirectory    PWD     Your script code calling a native executable Pop-Location    Consider whether you really want to set it back    What if another runspace has set it in-between calls   Environment   CurrentDirectory    CWD   There s no foolproof alternative to this  Many of us put a line in our prompt function to set  Environment   CurrentDirectory     but that doesn t help you when you re changing the location within a script   Two notes about the reason why this is not set by PowerShell automatically    PowerShell can be multi-threaded  You can have multiple Runspaces  see RunspacePool  and the PSThreadJob module  running simultaneously withinin a single process  Each runspace has it s own  PWD present working directory  but there s only one process  and only one Environment  Even when you re single-threaded   PWD isn t always a legal CurrentDirectory  you might CD into the registry provider for instance     If you want to put it into your prompt  which would only run in the main runspace  single-threaded   you need to use    Environment   CurrentDirectory   Get-Location -PSProvider FileSystem

User · Answer

I often used the following code to import a module which sit under the same directory as the running script  It will first get the directory from which powershell is running      currentPath Split-Path   Get-Variable   MyInvocation -Scope   0  Value  MyCommand Path      import-module   currentPath sqlps ps1

User · Answer

Do you mean you want the script s own path so you can reference a file next to the script   Try this       scriptpath    MyInvocation MyCommand Path  dir   Split-Path  scriptpath Write-host  My directory is  dir    You can get a lot of info from  MyInvocation and its properties   If you want to reference a file in the current working directory  you can use Resolve-Path or Get-ChildItem    filepath   Resolve-Path  somefile txt    EDIT  based on comment from OP      temporarily change to the correct folder Push-Location  folder    do stuff  call ant  etc    now back to previous directory Pop-Location   There s probably other ways of achieving something similar using Invoke-Command as well

User · Answer

I made a one-liner out of  JohnL s solution   MyInvocation MyCommand Path   Split-Path   Push-Location

User · Answer

Well I was looking for solution for this for a while  without any scripts just from CLI  This is how I do it xD   Navigate to folder from which you want to run script  important thing is that you have tab completions        dir  Now surround location with double quotes  and inside them add cd  so we could invoke another instance of powershell   quot cd       dir quot   Add another command to run script separated by    with is a command separator in powershell  quot cd       dir   script ps1 quot   Finally Run it with another instance of powershell start powershell  quot cd      dir   script ps1 quot    This will open new powershell window  go to       dir  run script ps1 and close window   Note that  quot   quot  just separates commands  like you typed them one by one  if first fails second will run and next after  and next after    If you wanna keep new powershell window open you add -noexit in passed command   Note that I first navigate to desired folder so I could use tab completions  you couldn t in double quotes   start powershell  quot -noexit cd      dir   script ps1 quot  Use double quotes  quot  quot  so you could pass directories with spaces in names e g   start powershell  quot -noexit cd        my dir   script ps1 quot

User · Answer

This would work fine   Push-Location  PSScriptRoot  Write-Host CurrentDirectory  CurDir

[powershell] PowerShell: Run command from script's directory

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