How to get Current Directory

Question

I ve been doing this in C  and Delphi  but C   is evil The purpose is to create a file in the current directory where the executable is running    My code   LPTSTR NPath   NULL  DWORD a   GetCurrentDirectory MAX PATH NPath   HANDLE hNewFile   CreateFile NPath GENERIC WRITE 0 NULL CREATE ALWAYS FILE ATTRIBUTE NORMAL NULL     I get exception at GetCurrentDirectory     Please tell me why I get an exception and how do I make it easier in C

User · Answer

Code snippets from my CAE project with unicode development environment:

/// @brief Gets current module file path. 
std::string getModuleFilePath() {
    TCHAR buffer[MAX_PATH];
    GetModuleFileName( NULL, buffer, MAX_PATH );
    CT2CA pszPath(buffer);
    std::string path(pszPath);
    std::string::size_type pos = path.find_last_of("\\/");
    return path.substr( 0, pos);
}

Just use the templete CA2CAEX or CA2AEX which calls the internal API ::MultiByteToWideChar or ::WideCharToMultiByte?

User · Answer

Please don t forget to initialize your buffers to something before utilizing them  And just as important  give your string buffers space for the ending null  TCHAR path MAX PATH 1    L    DWORD len   GetCurrentDirectory MAX PATH  path     Reference

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An easy way to do this is    int main int argc  char   argv         std  cout  lt  lt  argv 0        std  cin get        argv   is pretty much an array containing arguments you ran the  exe with  but the first one is always a path to the executable  If I build this the console shows  C  Users Ulisse source repos altcmd Debug currentdir exe

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GetCurrentDirectory   gets the current directory which is where the exe is invoked from  To get the location of the exe  use GetModuleFileName NULL       if you have the handle to the exe  or you can derive it from GetCommandLine   if you don t   As Mr  Butterworth points out  you don t need a handle

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You can remove the filename from GetModuleFileName   with more elegant way   TCHAR fullPath MAX PATH   TCHAR driveLetter 3   TCHAR directory MAX PATH   TCHAR FinalPath MAX PATH   GetModuleFileName NULL  fullPath  MAX PATH    splitpath fullPath  driveLetter  directory  NULL  NULL   sprintf FinalPath    s s  driveLetter  directory     Hope it helps

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WCHAR path MAX PATH     0   GetModuleFileName NULL  path  MAX PATH   PathRemoveFileSpec path

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include  lt windows h gt  using namespace std      The directory path returned by native GetCurrentDirectory   no end backslash string getCurrentDirectoryOnWindows         const unsigned long maxDir   260      char currentDir maxDir       GetCurrentDirectory maxDir  currentDir       return string currentDir

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IMHO here are some improvements to anon s answer     include  lt windows h gt   include  lt string gt   include  lt iostream gt   std  string GetExeFileName       char buffer MAX PATH     GetModuleFileName  NULL  buffer  MAX PATH      return std  string buffer      std  string GetExePath        std  string f   GetExeFileName      return f substr 0  f find last of

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The question is not clear whether the current working directory is wanted or the path of the directory containing the executable   Most answers seem to answer the latter   But for the former  and for the second part of the question of creating the file  the C  17 standard now incorporates the filesystem library which simplifies this a lot    include  lt filesystem gt   include  lt iostream gt   std  filesystem  path cwd   std  filesystem  current path      filename txt   std  ofstream file cwd string     file close      This fetches the current working directory  adds the filename to the path and creates an empty file  Note that the path object takes care of os dependent path handling  so cwd string   returns an os dependent path string  Neato

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I would recommend reading a book on C   before you go any further  as it would be helpful to get a firmer footing  Accelerated C   by Koenig and Moo is excellent  To get the executable path use GetModuleFileName  TCHAR buffer MAX PATH      0    GetModuleFileName  NULL  buffer  MAX PATH     Here s a C   function that gets the directory without the file name   include  lt windows h gt   include  lt string gt   include  lt iostream gt   wstring ExePath         TCHAR buffer MAX PATH      0        GetModuleFileName  NULL  buffer  MAX PATH        std  wstring  size type pos   std  wstring buffer  find last of L quot     quot        return std  wstring buffer  substr 0  pos      int main         std  cout  lt  lt   quot my directory is  quot   lt  lt  ExePath    lt  lt   quot  n quot

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I guess  that the easiest way to locate the current directory is to cut it from command line args    include  lt string gt   include  lt iostream gt   int main int argc  char  argv        std  string cur dir argv 0      int pos   cur dir find last of            std  cout  lt  lt   path     lt  lt  cur dir substr 0  pos   lt  lt  std  endl    std  cout  lt  lt   file     lt  lt  cur dir substr pos 1   lt  lt  std  endl    return 0      You may know that every program gets its executable name as first command line argument  So you can use this

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Why does nobody here consider using this simple code   TCHAR szDir MAX PATH      0     GetModuleFileName NULL  szDir  MAX PATH   szDir std  string szDir  find last of           0    or even simpler  TCHAR szDir MAX PATH      0    TCHAR  szEnd   nullptr  GetModuleFileName NULL  szDir  MAX PATH   szEnd    tcsrchr szDir          szEnd   0

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include  lt iostream gt       include  lt stdio h gt   include  lt dirent h gt   std  string current working directory         char  cwd    getcwd  0  0             microsoft specific          std  string working directory cwd        std  free cwd        return working directory      int main        std  cout  lt  lt   i am now in    lt  lt  current working directory    lt  lt  endl      I failed to use GetModuleFileName correctly  I found this work very well  just tested on Windows  not yet try on Linux

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To find the directory where your executable is  you can use   TCHAR szFilePath  MAX PATH     GetModuleFileName NULL  szFilePath   MAX PATH

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GetCurrentDirectory does not allocate space for the result  it s up to you to do that   TCHAR NPath MAX PATH   GetCurrentDirectory MAX PATH  NPath     Also  take a look at Boost Filesystem library if you want to do this the C   way

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String  exePath   Application  ExecutablePath  lt br gt  MessageBox  Show exePath

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You should provide a valid buffer placeholder  that is    TCHAR s 100   DWORD a   GetCurrentDirectory 100  s

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If you are using the Poco library  it s a one liner and it should work on all platforms I think   Poco  Path  current

[c++] How to get Current Directory?

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