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

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?

This would work fine.

Push-Location $PSScriptRoot

Write-Host CurrentDirectory $CurDir

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:

1. 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.
2. 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

I made a one-liner out of @JohnL's solution:

$MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path | Split-Path | Push-Location

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"

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.

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.

  "cd ..\..\dir"

• Add another command to run script separated by ;, with is a command separator in powershell

  "cd ..\..\dir\; script.ps1"

• Finally Run it with another instance of powershell

  start powershell "cd..\..\dir\; script.ps1"

This will open new powershell window, go to ..\..\dir, run script.ps1 and close window.

Note that ";" 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 "-noexit cd..\..\dir\; script.ps1"

Use double quotes "" so you could pass directories with spaces in names e.g.,

start powershell "-noexit cd '..\..\my dir'; script.ps1"