Unix shell script find out which directory the script file resides

Question

Basically I need to run the script with paths related to the shell script file location  how can I change the current directory to the same directory as where the script file resides

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An earlier comment on an answer said it  but it is easy to miss among all the other answers   When using bash   echo this file    BASH SOURCE  echo this dir     dirname   BASH SOURCE      Bash Reference Manual  5 2 Bash Variables

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That should do the trick   echo  pwd   dirname  0    It might look ugly depending on how it was invoked and the cwd but should get you where you need to go  or you can tweak the string if you care how it looks

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Let s make it a POSIX oneliner   a    0   a   a      a   a     a   a -    BASEDIR   cd   a   pwd    Tested on many Bourne-compatible shells including the BSD ones   As far as I know I am the author and I put it into public domain  For more info see  https   www jasan tk posts 2017-05-11-posix shell dirname replacement

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cd   dirname   readlink -f  0

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Assuming you re using bash    bin bash  current dir   pwd  script dir   dirname  quot  0 quot    echo  current dir echo  script dir  This script should print the directory that you re in  and then the directory the script is in  For example  when calling it from   with the script in  home mez   it outputs    home mez  Remember  when assigning variables from the output of a command  wrap the command in    and   - or you won t get the desired output

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This one-liner tells where the shell script is  does not matter if you ran it or if you sourced it  Also  it resolves any symbolic links involved  if that is the case   dir   dirname   test -L   BASH SOURCE   amp  amp  readlink -f   BASH SOURCE     echo   BASH SOURCE      By the way  I suppose you are using  bin bash

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Let s make it a POSIX oneliner   a    0   a   a      a   a     a   a -    BASEDIR   cd   a   pwd    Tested on many Bourne-compatible shells including the BSD ones   As far as I know I am the author and I put it into public domain  For more info see  https   www jasan tk posts 2017-05-11-posix shell dirname replacement

User · Answer

That should do the trick   echo  pwd   dirname  0    It might look ugly depending on how it was invoked and the cwd but should get you where you need to go  or you can tweak the string if you care how it looks

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In Bash  you should get what you need like this      usr bin env bash  BASEDIR   dirname   0   echo   BASEDIR

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So many answers  all plausible  each with pro s and con s  amp  slightly differeing objectives  which should probably be stated for each   Here s another solution that meets a primary objective of both being clear and working across all systems  on all bash  no assumptions about bash versions  or readlink or pwd options   and reasonably does what you d expect to happen  eg  resolving symlinks is an interesting problem  but isn t usually what you actually want   handle edge cases like spaces in paths  etc   ignores any errors and uses a sane default if there are any issues   Each component is stored in a separate variable that you can use individually     script path  filename  directory PROG PATH   BASH SOURCE 0          this script s name PROG NAME   PROG PATH              basename of script  strip path  PROG DIR    cd    dirname    PROG PATH - PWD     2 gt  dev null 1 gt  amp 2  amp  amp  pwd

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In Bash  you should get what you need like this      usr bin env bash  BASEDIR   dirname   0   echo   BASEDIR

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INTRODUCTION  This answer corrects the very broken but shockingly top voted answer of this thread  written by TheMarko       usr bin env bash  BASEDIR   dirname   0   echo   BASEDIR    WHY DOES USING dirname   0  ON IT S OWN NOT WORK   dirname  0 will only work if user launches script in a very specific way  I was able to find several situations where this answer fails and crashes the script    First of all  let s understand how this answer works  He s getting the script directory by doing   dirname   0     0 represents the first part of the command calling the script  it s basically the inputted command without the arguments     some path   script argument1 argument2    0   some path   script   dirname basically finds the last   in a string and truncates it there  So if you do     dirname  usr bin sha256sum   you ll get   usr bin    This example works well because  usr bin sha256sum is a properly formatted path but     dirname   some path   script    wouldn t work well and would give you     BASENAME   some path     which would crash your script if you try to use it as a path   Say you re in the same dir as your script and you launch it with this command    script       0 in this situation will be   script and dirname  0 will give      or BASEDIR      again this will crash your script   Using   sh script   Without inputting the full path will also give a BASEDIR      Using relative directories       some path   script   Gives a dirname  0 of       some path     If you re in the  some directory and you call the script in this manner  note the absence of   in the beginning  again a relative path     path   script sh   You ll get this value for dirname  0    path      and   path   script  another form of the relative path  gives      path     The only two situations where basedir  0 will work is if the user use sh or touch to launch a script because both will result in  0     0  some path script   which will give you a path you can use with dirname   THE SOLUTION  You d have account for and detect every one of the above mentioned situations and apply a fix for it if it arises       bin bash  this script will only work in bash  make sure it s installed on your system    set to false to not see all the echos debug true  if     debug    true    then echo    0  0  fi    The line below detect script s parent directory   0 is the part of the launch command that doesn t contain the arguments BASEDIR   dirname   0    3 situations will cause dirname  0 to fail   situation1  user launches script while in script dir    0   script                                                                        situation2  different dir but    is used to launch script  ex   0  path to   script                                                                        situation3  different dir but relative path used to launch script if     debug    true    then echo  BASEDIR   dirname   0   gives     BASEDIR  fi                                   if     BASEDIR           then BASEDIR    pwd   fi   fix for situation1   B2   BASEDIR       BASEDIR -2     B    BASEDIR  1   B 2   BASEDIR  2   B 3   BASEDIR  3     lt - bash only if      B2            then BASEDIR   BASEDIR        BASEDIR -1    fi  fix for situation2    lt - bash only if     B             then   fix for situation3   lt - bash only         if     B 2            then                  covers   relative path     script                 if      pwd             then BASEDIR    pwd    BASEDIR 2    else BASEDIR     BASEDIR 2   fi         else                  covers relative path     script and    relative path     script  using    relative path fails if current path is a symbolic link                 if      pwd             then BASEDIR    pwd   BASEDIR   else BASEDIR    BASEDIR  fi         fi fi  if     debug    true    then echo  fixed BASEDIR  BASEDIR  fi

User · Answer

BASE DIR    cd    dirname   0     pwd    echo  BASE DIR   gt   BASE DIR

User · Answer

That should do the trick   echo  pwd   dirname  0    It might look ugly depending on how it was invoked and the cwd but should get you where you need to go  or you can tweak the string if you care how it looks

User · Answer

An earlier comment on an answer said it  but it is easy to miss among all the other answers   When using bash   echo this file    BASH SOURCE  echo this dir     dirname   BASH SOURCE      Bash Reference Manual  5 2 Bash Variables

User · Answer

Inspired by blueyed   s answer  read  lt   lt  readlink -f  0   xargs dirname  cd  REPLY

User · Answer

Inspired by blueyed   s answer  read  lt   lt  readlink -f  0   xargs dirname  cd  REPLY

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The original post contains the solution  ignore the responses  they don t add anything useful   The interesting work is done by the mentioned unix command readlink with option -f  Works when the script is called by an absolute as well as by a relative path   For bash  sh  ksh      bin bash    Absolute path to this script  e g   home user bin foo sh SCRIPT   readlink -f   0     Absolute path this script is in  thus  home user bin SCRIPTPATH   dirname   SCRIPT   echo  SCRIPTPATH   For tcsh  csh      bin tcsh   Absolute path to this script  e g   home user bin foo csh set SCRIPT  readlink -f   0     Absolute path this script is in  thus  home user bin set SCRIPTPATH  dirname   SCRIPT   echo  SCRIPTPATH   See also  https   stackoverflow com a 246128 59087

User · Answer

In Bash  you should get what you need like this      usr bin env bash  BASEDIR   dirname   0   echo   BASEDIR

User · Answer

If you re using bash         bin bash  pushd   dirname    0     gt   dev null basedir   pwd -L    Use  pwd -P  for the path without links  man bash for more info  popd  gt   dev null  echo    basedir

User · Answer

The original post contains the solution  ignore the responses  they don t add anything useful   The interesting work is done by the mentioned unix command readlink with option -f  Works when the script is called by an absolute as well as by a relative path   For bash  sh  ksh      bin bash    Absolute path to this script  e g   home user bin foo sh SCRIPT   readlink -f   0     Absolute path this script is in  thus  home user bin SCRIPTPATH   dirname   SCRIPT   echo  SCRIPTPATH   For tcsh  csh      bin tcsh   Absolute path to this script  e g   home user bin foo csh set SCRIPT  readlink -f   0     Absolute path this script is in  thus  home user bin set SCRIPTPATH  dirname   SCRIPT   echo  SCRIPTPATH   See also  https   stackoverflow com a 246128 59087

User · Answer

BASE DIR    cd    dirname   0     pwd    echo  BASE DIR   gt   BASE DIR

User · Answer

If you want to get the actual script directory  irrespective of whether you are invoking the script using a symlink or directly   try   BASEDIR   dirname   realpath   0    echo   BASEDIR    This works on both linux and macOS  I couldn t see anyone here mention about realpath  Not sure whether there are any drawbacks in this approach   on macOS  you need to install coreutils to use realpath  Eg  brew install coreutils

User · Answer

As theMarko suggests   BASEDIR   dirname  0  echo  BASEDIR   This works unless you execute the script from the same directory where the script resides  in which case you get a value of      To get around that issue use   current dir   pwd  script dir   dirname  0   if    script dir         then script dir   current dir  fi   You can now use the variable current dir throughout your script to refer to the script directory   However this may still have the symlink issue

User · Answer

This one-liner tells where the shell script is  does not matter if you ran it or if you sourced it  Also  it resolves any symbolic links involved  if that is the case   dir   dirname   test -L   BASH SOURCE   amp  amp  readlink -f   BASH SOURCE     echo   BASH SOURCE      By the way  I suppose you are using  bin bash

User · Answer

cd   dirname   readlink -f  0

User · Answer

So many answers  all plausible  each with pro s and con s  amp  slightly differeing objectives  which should probably be stated for each   Here s another solution that meets a primary objective of both being clear and working across all systems  on all bash  no assumptions about bash versions  or readlink or pwd options   and reasonably does what you d expect to happen  eg  resolving symlinks is an interesting problem  but isn t usually what you actually want   handle edge cases like spaces in paths  etc   ignores any errors and uses a sane default if there are any issues   Each component is stored in a separate variable that you can use individually     script path  filename  directory PROG PATH   BASH SOURCE 0          this script s name PROG NAME   PROG PATH              basename of script  strip path  PROG DIR    cd    dirname    PROG PATH - PWD     2 gt  dev null 1 gt  amp 2  amp  amp  pwd

User · Answer

Assuming you re using bash    bin bash  current dir   pwd  script dir   dirname  quot  0 quot    echo  current dir echo  script dir  This script should print the directory that you re in  and then the directory the script is in  For example  when calling it from   with the script in  home mez   it outputs    home mez  Remember  when assigning variables from the output of a command  wrap the command in    and   - or you won t get the desired output

User · Answer

The best answer for this question was answered here  Getting the source directory of a Bash script from within  And it is   DIR     cd     dirname    BASH SOURCE 0        amp  amp  pwd      One-liner which will give you the full directory name of the script no matter where it is being called from   To understand how it works you can execute the following script      bin bash  SOURCE    BASH SOURCE 0    while   -h   SOURCE     do   resolve  SOURCE until the file is no longer a symlink   TARGET    readlink   SOURCE      if     TARGET           then     echo  SOURCE   SOURCE  is an absolute symlink to   TARGET       SOURCE   TARGET    else     DIR     dirname   SOURCE         echo  SOURCE   SOURCE  is a relative symlink to   TARGET   relative to   DIR        SOURCE   DIR  TARGET    if  SOURCE was a relative symlink  we need to resolve it relative to the path where the symlink file was located   fi done echo  SOURCE is   SOURCE   RDIR     dirname   SOURCE     DIR     cd -P     dirname   SOURCE      amp  amp  pwd    if     DIR       RDIR     then   echo  DIR   RDIR  resolves to   DIR   fi echo  DIR is   DIR

User · Answer

If you re using bash         bin bash  pushd   dirname    0     gt   dev null basedir   pwd -L    Use  pwd -P  for the path without links  man bash for more info  popd  gt   dev null  echo    basedir

User · Answer

INTRODUCTION  This answer corrects the very broken but shockingly top voted answer of this thread  written by TheMarko       usr bin env bash  BASEDIR   dirname   0   echo   BASEDIR    WHY DOES USING dirname   0  ON IT S OWN NOT WORK   dirname  0 will only work if user launches script in a very specific way  I was able to find several situations where this answer fails and crashes the script    First of all  let s understand how this answer works  He s getting the script directory by doing   dirname   0     0 represents the first part of the command calling the script  it s basically the inputted command without the arguments     some path   script argument1 argument2    0   some path   script   dirname basically finds the last   in a string and truncates it there  So if you do     dirname  usr bin sha256sum   you ll get   usr bin    This example works well because  usr bin sha256sum is a properly formatted path but     dirname   some path   script    wouldn t work well and would give you     BASENAME   some path     which would crash your script if you try to use it as a path   Say you re in the same dir as your script and you launch it with this command    script       0 in this situation will be   script and dirname  0 will give      or BASEDIR      again this will crash your script   Using   sh script   Without inputting the full path will also give a BASEDIR      Using relative directories       some path   script   Gives a dirname  0 of       some path     If you re in the  some directory and you call the script in this manner  note the absence of   in the beginning  again a relative path     path   script sh   You ll get this value for dirname  0    path      and   path   script  another form of the relative path  gives      path     The only two situations where basedir  0 will work is if the user use sh or touch to launch a script because both will result in  0     0  some path script   which will give you a path you can use with dirname   THE SOLUTION  You d have account for and detect every one of the above mentioned situations and apply a fix for it if it arises       bin bash  this script will only work in bash  make sure it s installed on your system    set to false to not see all the echos debug true  if     debug    true    then echo    0  0  fi    The line below detect script s parent directory   0 is the part of the launch command that doesn t contain the arguments BASEDIR   dirname   0    3 situations will cause dirname  0 to fail   situation1  user launches script while in script dir    0   script                                                                        situation2  different dir but    is used to launch script  ex   0  path to   script                                                                        situation3  different dir but relative path used to launch script if     debug    true    then echo  BASEDIR   dirname   0   gives     BASEDIR  fi                                   if     BASEDIR           then BASEDIR    pwd   fi   fix for situation1   B2   BASEDIR       BASEDIR -2     B    BASEDIR  1   B 2   BASEDIR  2   B 3   BASEDIR  3     lt - bash only if      B2            then BASEDIR   BASEDIR        BASEDIR -1    fi  fix for situation2    lt - bash only if     B             then   fix for situation3   lt - bash only         if     B 2            then                  covers   relative path     script                 if      pwd             then BASEDIR    pwd    BASEDIR 2    else BASEDIR     BASEDIR 2   fi         else                  covers relative path     script and    relative path     script  using    relative path fails if current path is a symbolic link                 if      pwd             then BASEDIR    pwd   BASEDIR   else BASEDIR    BASEDIR  fi         fi fi  if     debug    true    then echo  fixed BASEDIR  BASEDIR  fi

User · Answer

The best answer for this question was answered here  Getting the source directory of a Bash script from within  And it is   DIR     cd     dirname    BASH SOURCE 0        amp  amp  pwd      One-liner which will give you the full directory name of the script no matter where it is being called from   To understand how it works you can execute the following script      bin bash  SOURCE    BASH SOURCE 0    while   -h   SOURCE     do   resolve  SOURCE until the file is no longer a symlink   TARGET    readlink   SOURCE      if     TARGET           then     echo  SOURCE   SOURCE  is an absolute symlink to   TARGET       SOURCE   TARGET    else     DIR     dirname   SOURCE         echo  SOURCE   SOURCE  is a relative symlink to   TARGET   relative to   DIR        SOURCE   DIR  TARGET    if  SOURCE was a relative symlink  we need to resolve it relative to the path where the symlink file was located   fi done echo  SOURCE is   SOURCE   RDIR     dirname   SOURCE     DIR     cd -P     dirname   SOURCE      amp  amp  pwd    if     DIR       RDIR     then   echo  DIR   RDIR  resolves to   DIR   fi echo  DIR is   DIR

User · Answer

Assuming you re using bash    bin bash  current dir   pwd  script dir   dirname  quot  0 quot    echo  current dir echo  script dir  This script should print the directory that you re in  and then the directory the script is in  For example  when calling it from   with the script in  home mez   it outputs    home mez  Remember  when assigning variables from the output of a command  wrap the command in    and   - or you won t get the desired output

User · Answer

That should do the trick   echo  pwd   dirname  0    It might look ugly depending on how it was invoked and the cwd but should get you where you need to go  or you can tweak the string if you care how it looks

User · Answer

If you want to get the actual script directory  irrespective of whether you are invoking the script using a symlink or directly   try   BASEDIR   dirname   realpath   0    echo   BASEDIR    This works on both linux and macOS  I couldn t see anyone here mention about realpath  Not sure whether there are any drawbacks in this approach   on macOS  you need to install coreutils to use realpath  Eg  brew install coreutils

User · Answer

In Bash  you should get what you need like this      usr bin env bash  BASEDIR   dirname   0   echo   BASEDIR

User · Answer

As theMarko suggests   BASEDIR   dirname  0  echo  BASEDIR   This works unless you execute the script from the same directory where the script resides  in which case you get a value of      To get around that issue use   current dir   pwd  script dir   dirname  0   if    script dir         then script dir   current dir  fi   You can now use the variable current dir throughout your script to refer to the script directory   However this may still have the symlink issue

User · Answer

Assuming you re using bash    bin bash  current dir   pwd  script dir   dirname  quot  0 quot    echo  current dir echo  script dir  This script should print the directory that you re in  and then the directory the script is in  For example  when calling it from   with the script in  home mez   it outputs    home mez  Remember  when assigning variables from the output of a command  wrap the command in    and   - or you won t get the desired output

[shell] Unix shell script find out which directory the script file resides?

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