Resolve absolute path from relative path and or file name

Question

Is there a way in a Windows batch script to return an absolute path from a value containing a filename and or relative path   Given             somefile txt    I need the absolute path relative to the batch file   Example     somefile txt  is located in  C  Foo    test bat  is located in  C  Foo Bar    User opens a command window in  C  Foo  and calls Bar test bat    somefile txt In the batch file  C  Foo somefile txt  would be derived from  1

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Most of these answers seem crazy over complicated and super buggy  here s mine -- it works on any environment variable  no  CD  or PUSHD POPD  or for  f nonsense -- just plain old batch functions  -- The directory  amp  file don t even have to exist  CALL  NORMALIZEPATH  quot          foo bar txt quot  SET BLAH  RETVAL   ECHO  quot  BLAH  quot                 FUNCTIONS            EXIT  B   NORMALIZEPATH   SET RETVAL   f1   EXIT  B

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Files See all other answers  Directories  With    being your relative path  and assuming you are currently in D  Projects EditorProject   cd     amp  cd  amp  cd EditorProject  the relative path   returns absolute path e g   D  Projects

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Without having to have another batch file to pass arguments to  and use the argument operators   you can use FOR  F   FOR  F   i IN      relativePath   DO echo absolute path     fi   where the i in    fi is the variable defined at  F   i   eg  if you changed that to  F   a then the last part would be    fa   To do the same thing right at the command prompt  and not in a batch file  replace    with

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PowerShell is pretty common these days so I use it often as a quick way to invoke C  since that has functions for pretty much everything    echo off set pathToResolve   dp0    SomeFile txt for  f  delims     a in   powershell -Command   System IO Path   GetFullPath    projectDirMc        do  set resolvedPath   a  echo Resolved path   resolvedPath    It s a bit slow  but the functionality gained is hard to beat unless without resorting to an actual scripting language

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In your example  from Bar test bat  DIR  B  S    somefile txt would return the full path

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Small improvement to BrainSlugs83 s excellent solution  Generalized to allow naming the output environment variable in the call    echo off setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion  rem Example input value  set RelativePath doc build  rem Resolve path  call  ResolvePath AbsolutePath  RelativePath   rem Output result  echo  AbsolutePath   rem End  exit  b  rem     Functions      rem Resolve path to absolute  rem Param 1  Name of output variable  rem Param 2  Path to resolve  rem Return  Resolved absolute path   ResolvePath     set  1   dpfn2     exit  b   If run from C  project output is   C  project doc build

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stijn s solution works with subfolders under C  Program Files  86      echo off set projectDirMc test txt  for  f  delims     a in   powershell -Command   System IO Path   GetFullPath    projectDirMc        do  set resolvedPath   a  echo full path      resolvedPath

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This is to help fill in the gaps in Adrien Plisson s answer  which should be upvoted as soon as he edits it  -    you can also get the fully qualified path of your first argument by using   f1  but this gives a path according to the current path  which is obviously not what you want  unfortunately  i don t know how to mix the 2 together     One can handle  0 and  1 likewise     dpnx0 for fully qualified drive path name extension of the batchfile itself    f0 also suffices    dpnx1 for fully qualified drive path name extension of its first argument  if that s a filename at all     f1 also suffices     f1 will work independent of how you did specify your first argument  with relative paths or with absolute paths  if you don t specify the file s extension when naming  1  it will not be added  even if you use   dpnx1 -- however  But how on earth would you name a file on a different drive anyway if you wouldn t give that full path info on the commandline in the first place  However    p0    n0    nx0 and   x0 may come in handy  should you be interested in path  without driveletter   filename  without extension   full filename with extension or filename s extension only  But note  while   p1 and   n1 will work to find out the path or name of the first argument    nx1 and   x1 will not add show the extension  unless you used it on the commandline already

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I came across a similar need this morning  how to convert a relative path into an absolute path inside a Windows command script   The following did the trick    echo off  set REL PATH        set ABS PATH   rem    Save current directory and change to target directory pushd  REL PATH   rem    Save value of CD variable  current directory  set ABS PATH  CD   rem    Restore original directory popd  echo Relative path   REL PATH  echo Maps to path   ABS PATH

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In batch files  as in standard C programs  argument 0 contains the path to the currently executing script  You can use   dp0 to get only the path portion of the 0th argument  which is the current script  - this path is always a fully qualified path   You can also get the fully qualified path of your first argument by using   f1  but this gives a path according to the current working directory  which is obviously not what you want    Personally  I often use the   dp0  1 idiom in my batch file  which interpret the first argument relative to the path of the executing batch  It does have a shortcoming though  it miserably fails if the first argument is fully-qualified   If you need to support both relative and absolute paths  you can make use of Fr  d  ric M  nez s solution  temporarily change the current working directory    Here s an example that ll demonstrate each of these techniques    echo off echo    dp0 is    dp0  echo   0 is   0  echo    dpnx0 is    dpnx0  echo    f1 is    f1  echo    dp0   1 is    dp0  1   rem Temporarily change the current working directory  to retrieve a full path  rem   to the first parameter pushd   cd   dp0 echo batch-relative    f1 is    f1  popd   If you save this as c  temp example bat and the run it from c  Users Public as  c  Users Public  temp example bat    windows     you ll observe the following output     dp0 is  C  temp    0 is   temp example bat    dpnx0 is  C  temp example bat    f1 is  C  Users windows    dp0  1 is  C  temp    windows  batch-relative   f1 is  C  Windows    the documentation for the set of modifiers allowed on a batch argument can be found here   https   docs microsoft com en-us windows-server administration windows-commands call

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SET CD   DP0  SET REL PATH  CD       build   call  ABSOLUTE PATH    ABS PATH    REL PATH   ECHO  REL PATH   ECHO  ABS PATH   pause  exit  b   ABSOLUTE PATH  SET  1   f2  exit  b

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I have not seen many solutions to this problem  Some solutions make use of directory traversal using CD and others make use of batch functions  My personal preference has been for batch functions and in particular  the MakeAbsolute function as provided by DosTips  The function has some real benefits  primarily that it does not change your current working directory and secondly that the paths being evaluated don t even have to exist  You can find some helpful tips on how to use the function here too  Here is an example script and its outputs   echo off  set scriptpath   dp0 set siblingfile sibling bat set siblingfolder sibling  set fnwsfolder folder name with spaces  set descendantfolder sibling descendant  set ancestorfolder        set cousinfolder    uncle cousin  call MakeAbsolute siblingfile       quot  scriptpath  quot  call MakeAbsolute siblingfolder     quot  scriptpath  quot  call MakeAbsolute fnwsfolder        quot  scriptpath  quot  call MakeAbsolute descendantfolder  quot  scriptpath  quot  call MakeAbsolute ancestorfolder    quot  scriptpath  quot  call MakeAbsolute cousinfolder      quot  scriptpath  quot   echo scriptpath         scriptpath  echo siblingfile        siblingfile  echo siblingfolder      siblingfolder  echo fnwsfolder         fnwsfolder  echo descendantfolder   descendantfolder  echo ancestorfolder     ancestorfolder  echo cousinfolder       cousinfolder  GOTO EOF    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------    Function declarations    Handy to read http   www dostips com DtTutoFunctions php for how dos functions    work    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------  MakeAbsolute file base -- makes a file name absolute considering a base path                         -- file  in out  - variable with file name to be converted  or file name itself for result in stdout                         -- base  in opt  - base path  leave blank for current directory   created 20060101   changed 20080219   categories Path   source http   www dostips com SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION set  quot src   1 quot  if defined  1 set  quot src    1  quot  set  quot bas   2 quot  if not defined bas set  quot bas  cd  quot  for  f  quot tokens   quot    a in   quot  bas    src  quot   do set  quot src    fa quot    ENDLOCAL  amp  REM RETURN VALUES     IF defined  1  SET   1  src   ELSE ECHO  src    EXIT  b  And the output  C  Users dayneo Documents gt myscript scriptpath        C  Users dayneo Documents  siblingfile       C  Users dayneo Documents sibling bat siblingfolder     C  Users dayneo Documents sibling  fnwsfolder        C  Users dayneo Documents folder name with spaces  descendantfolder  C  Users dayneo Documents sibling descendant  ancestorfolder    C  Users  cousinfolder      C  Users dayneo uncle cousin  I hope this helps    It sure helped me    P S  Thanks again to DosTips  You rock

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You can also use batch functions for this    echo off setlocal   goto MAIN   -----------------------------------------------       f2  get abs path of   2        fs2  get abs path with short names of   2   setAbsPath   setlocal   set   absPath   f2   endlocal  amp  amp  set  1    absPath    goto  eof   -----------------------------------------------   MAIN call  setAbsPath ABS PATH     echo  ABS PATH   endlocal

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You can just concatenate them   SET ABS PATH   dp0  SET REL PATH    SomeFile txt SET COMBINED PATH  ABS PATH  REL PATH    it looks odd with      in the middle of your path but it works  No need to do anything crazy

[windows] Resolve absolute path from relative path and/or file name

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