How do I know the script file name in a Bash script

Question

How can I determine the name of the Bash script file inside the script itself   Like if my script is in file runme sh  then how would I make it to display  You are running runme sh  message without hardcoding that

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Re  Tanktalus s  accepted  answer above  a slightly cleaner way is to use   me   readlink --canonicalize --no-newline  0    If your script has been sourced from another bash script  you can use   me   readlink --canonicalize --no-newline  BASH SOURCE    I agree that it would be confusing to dereference symlinks if your objective is to provide feedback to the user  but there are occasions when you do need to get the canonical name to a script or other file  and this is the best way  imo

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Info thanks to Bill Hernandez  I added some preferences I m adopting      bin bash function Usage        echo   Usage  show parameters   arg1    arg2            2  -eq 0     amp  amp  Usage          echo     echo    arguments called with ---- gt                  echo      1 ----------------------- gt    1             echo      2 ----------------------- gt    2             echo    path to me --------------- gt     0          sed  s  USER   USER g      echo    parent path -------------- gt     0          sed  s  USER   USER g      echo    my name ------------------ gt     0            echo     Cheers

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------------- SCRIPT -------------       bin bash  echo echo    arguments called with ----              echo      1 ----------------------    1         echo      2 ----------------------    2         echo    path to me ---------------     0        echo    parent path --------------     0        echo    my name ------------------     0        echo exit    ------------- CALLED -------------      Notice on the next line  the first argument is called within double     and single quotes  since it contains two words      misc shell scripts check root show parms sh   hello there     william      ------------- RESULTS -------------      arguments called with ---    hello there   william     1 ----------------------    hello there     2 ----------------------    william    path to me --------------    misc shell scripts check root show parms sh   parent path -------------    misc shell scripts check root   my name -----------------   show parms sh    ------------- END -------------

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In bash you can get the script file name using  0  Generally  1   2 etc are to access CLI arguments  Similarly  0 is to access the name which triggers the script script file name       bin bash echo  You are running  0            If you invoke the script with path like  path to script sh then  0 also will give the filename with path  In that case need to use   basename  0  to get only script file name

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Short  clear and simple  in my script sh     bin bash  running file name   basename   0    echo  You are running   running file name  file     Out put     my script sh You are running  my script sh  file

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This works fine with   self sh    self sh  source self sh  source   self sh     usr bin env bash  self   readlink -f  quot   BASH SOURCE 0   quot   basename   basename  quot  self quot    echo  quot  self quot  echo  quot  basename quot   Credits  I combined multiple answers to get this one

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To answer Chris Conway  on Linux  at least  you would do this   echo   basename   readlink -nf  0     readlink prints out the value of a symbolic link   If it isn t a symbolic link  it prints the file name   -n tells it to not print a newline   -f tells it to follow the link completely  if a symbolic link was a link to another link  it would resolve that one as well

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This works fine with   self sh    self sh  source self sh  source   self sh     usr bin env bash  self   readlink -f  quot   BASH SOURCE 0   quot   basename   basename  quot  self quot    echo  quot  self quot  echo  quot  basename quot   Credits  I combined multiple answers to get this one

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DIRECTORY   cd  dirname  0   amp  amp  pwd    I got the above from another Stack nbsp Overflow question  Can a Bash script tell what directory it s stored in   but I think it s useful for this topic as well

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BASH SOURCE gives the correct answer when sourcing the script   This however includes the path so to get the scripts filename only  use     basename  BASH SOURCE

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With bash    3 the following works       s 0 is    s BASH SOURCE is    s       s 0 is  bash BASH SOURCE is    s    cat s    bin bash  printf   0 is   s n BASH SOURCE is   s n    0    BASH SOURCE

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To answer Chris Conway  on Linux  at least  you would do this   echo   basename   readlink -nf  0     readlink prints out the value of a symbolic link   If it isn t a symbolic link  it prints the file name   -n tells it to not print a newline   -f tells it to follow the link completely  if a symbolic link was a link to another link  it would resolve that one as well

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Short  clear and simple  in my script sh     bin bash  running file name   basename   0    echo  You are running   running file name  file     Out put     my script sh You are running  my script sh  file

User · Answer

Here is what I came up with  inspired by Dimitre Radoulov s answer  which I upvoted  by the way    script   BASH SOURCE    -z   BASH SOURCE     amp  amp  script   0   echo  Called  script with    argument s     regardless of the way you call your script    path to script sh   or    path to script sh

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If you want it without the path then you would use   0

User · Answer

Re  Tanktalus s  accepted  answer above  a slightly cleaner way is to use   me   readlink --canonicalize --no-newline  0    If your script has been sourced from another bash script  you can use   me   readlink --canonicalize --no-newline  BASH SOURCE    I agree that it would be confusing to dereference symlinks if your objective is to provide feedback to the user  but there are occasions when you do need to get the canonical name to a script or other file  and this is the best way  imo

User · Answer

With bash    3 the following works       s 0 is    s BASH SOURCE is    s       s 0 is  bash BASH SOURCE is    s    cat s    bin bash  printf   0 is   s n BASH SOURCE is   s n    0    BASH SOURCE

User · Answer

If the script name has spaces in it  a more robust way is to use   0  or    basename   0    - or on MacOS     basename    0      This prevents the name from getting mangled or interpreted in any way  In general  it is good practice to always double-quote variable names in the shell

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this    dirname    realpath   BASH SOURCE        This resolves symbolic links  realpath does that   handles spaces  double quotes do this   and will find the current script name even when sourced      myscript  or called by other scripts   BASH SOURCE handles that    After all that  it is good to save this in a environment variable for re-use or for easy copy elsewhere  this

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me  basename   0     For reading through a symlink1  which is usually not what you want  you usually don t want to confuse the user this way   try   me    basename    test -L   0   amp  amp  readlink   0     echo   0        IMO  that ll produce confusing output    I ran foo sh  but it s saying I m running bar sh    Must be a bug     Besides  one of the purposes of having differently-named symlinks is to provide different functionality based on the name it s called as  think gzip and gunzip on some platforms      1 That is  to resolve symlinks such that when the user executes foo sh which is actually a symlink to bar sh  you wish to use the resolved name bar sh rather than foo sh

User · Answer

If you want it without the path then you would use   0

User · Answer

this    dirname    realpath   BASH SOURCE        This resolves symbolic links  realpath does that   handles spaces  double quotes do this   and will find the current script name even when sourced      myscript  or called by other scripts   BASH SOURCE handles that    After all that  it is good to save this in a environment variable for re-use or for easy copy elsewhere  this

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echo  You are running  0

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Since some comments asked about the filename without extension  here s an example how to accomplish that   FileName   0      FileNameWithoutExtension   FileName       Enjoy

User · Answer

DIRECTORY   cd  dirname  0   amp  amp  pwd    I got the above from another Stack nbsp Overflow question  Can a Bash script tell what directory it s stored in   but I think it s useful for this topic as well

User · Answer

echo  You are running  0

User · Answer

In bash you can get the script file name using  0  Generally  1   2 etc are to access CLI arguments  Similarly  0 is to access the name which triggers the script script file name       bin bash echo  You are running  0            If you invoke the script with path like  path to script sh then  0 also will give the filename with path  In that case need to use   basename  0  to get only script file name

User · Answer

If the script name has spaces in it  a more robust way is to use   0  or    basename   0    - or on MacOS     basename    0      This prevents the name from getting mangled or interpreted in any way  In general  it is good practice to always double-quote variable names in the shell

User · Answer

If the script name has spaces in it  a more robust way is to use   0  or    basename   0    - or on MacOS     basename    0      This prevents the name from getting mangled or interpreted in any way  In general  it is good practice to always double-quote variable names in the shell

User · Answer

If you want it without the path then you would use   0

User · Answer

You can use  0 to determine your script name  with full path  - to get the script name only you can trim that variable with  basename  0

User · Answer

echo  You are running  0

User · Answer

If you want it without the path then you would use   0

User · Answer

echo    basename   test -L   BASH SOURCE 0                         amp  amp  readlink   BASH SOURCE 0                           echo   BASH SOURCE 0

User · Answer

To answer Chris Conway  on Linux  at least  you would do this   echo   basename   readlink -nf  0     readlink prints out the value of a symbolic link   If it isn t a symbolic link  it prints the file name   -n tells it to not print a newline   -f tells it to follow the link completely  if a symbolic link was a link to another link  it would resolve that one as well

User · Answer

me  basename   0     For reading through a symlink1  which is usually not what you want  you usually don t want to confuse the user this way   try   me    basename    test -L   0   amp  amp  readlink   0     echo   0        IMO  that ll produce confusing output    I ran foo sh  but it s saying I m running bar sh    Must be a bug     Besides  one of the purposes of having differently-named symlinks is to provide different functionality based on the name it s called as  think gzip and gunzip on some platforms      1 That is  to resolve symlinks such that when the user executes foo sh which is actually a symlink to bar sh  you wish to use the resolved name bar sh rather than foo sh

User · Answer

echo    basename   test -L   BASH SOURCE 0                         amp  amp  readlink   BASH SOURCE 0                           echo   BASH SOURCE 0

User · Answer

somthing like this    export LC ALL en US UTF-8    bin bash    bin sh   ---------------------------------------------------------------------- start trash    ver  htrash sh v0 0 4   TRASH DIR    url to trash  MY USER  TRASH SIZE   Show Trash Folder Size  echo  Would you like to empty Trash   y n    read ans if    ans   y -o  ans   Y -o  ans   yes -o  ans   Yes -o  ans   YES   then echo   yes   cd  TRASH DIR  amp  amp   EMPTY TRASH fi if    ans   n -o  ans   N -o  ans   no -o  ans   No -o  ans   NO   then echo   no   fi  return  TRUE     -----------------------------------------------------------------------  start help    echo  HELP COMMANDS-----------------------------  echo  htest www                 open a homepage   echo  htest trash               empty trash        return  TRUE    end Help  -----------------------------------------------   homepage     return  TRUE    end cpdebtemp    -Case start   if no command line arg given   set val to Unknown if   -z  1   then   val      Unknown       elif   -n  1   then   otherwise make first arg as val   val  1 fi   use case statement to make decision for rental case  val in     trash   start trash        help   start help        www   firefox  homepage          echo  Sorry  I can not get a  val   for you     esac   Case stop

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------------- SCRIPT -------------       bin bash  echo echo    arguments called with ----              echo      1 ----------------------    1         echo      2 ----------------------    2         echo    path to me ---------------     0        echo    parent path --------------     0        echo    my name ------------------     0        echo exit    ------------- CALLED -------------      Notice on the next line  the first argument is called within double     and single quotes  since it contains two words      misc shell scripts check root show parms sh   hello there     william      ------------- RESULTS -------------      arguments called with ---    hello there   william     1 ----------------------    hello there     2 ----------------------    william    path to me --------------    misc shell scripts check root show parms sh   parent path -------------    misc shell scripts check root   my name -----------------   show parms sh    ------------- END -------------

User · Answer

To answer Chris Conway  on Linux  at least  you would do this   echo   basename   readlink -nf  0     readlink prints out the value of a symbolic link   If it isn t a symbolic link  it prints the file name   -n tells it to not print a newline   -f tells it to follow the link completely  if a symbolic link was a link to another link  it would resolve that one as well

User · Answer

me  basename   0     For reading through a symlink1  which is usually not what you want  you usually don t want to confuse the user this way   try   me    basename    test -L   0   amp  amp  readlink   0     echo   0        IMO  that ll produce confusing output    I ran foo sh  but it s saying I m running bar sh    Must be a bug     Besides  one of the purposes of having differently-named symlinks is to provide different functionality based on the name it s called as  think gzip and gunzip on some platforms      1 That is  to resolve symlinks such that when the user executes foo sh which is actually a symlink to bar sh  you wish to use the resolved name bar sh rather than foo sh

User · Answer

BASH SOURCE gives the correct answer when sourcing the script   This however includes the path so to get the scripts filename only  use     basename  BASH SOURCE

User · Answer

These answers are correct for the cases they state but there is a still a problem if you run the script from another script using the  source  keyword  so that it runs in the same shell   In this case  you get the  0 of the calling script  And in this case  I don t think it is possible to get the name of the script itself   This is an edge case and should not be taken TOO seriously  If you run the script from another script directly  without  source    using  0 will work

User · Answer

echo  You are running  0

User · Answer

If the script name has spaces in it  a more robust way is to use   0  or    basename   0    - or on MacOS     basename    0      This prevents the name from getting mangled or interpreted in any way  In general  it is good practice to always double-quote variable names in the shell

User · Answer

Since some comments asked about the filename without extension  here s an example how to accomplish that   FileName   0      FileNameWithoutExtension   FileName       Enjoy

User · Answer

I ve found this line to always work  regardless of whether the file is being sourced or run as a script   echo    BASH SOURCE    BASH SOURCE     - 1      If you want to follow symlinks use readlink on the path you get above  recursively or non-recursively   The reason the one-liner works is explained by the use of the BASH SOURCE environment variable and its associate FUNCNAME      BASH SOURCE      An array variable whose members are the source filenames where the corresponding shell function names in the FUNCNAME array variable are  defined   The shell function   FUNCNAME  i   is defined in the file   BASH SOURCE  i   and called from   BASH SOURCE  i 1         FUNCNAME      An array variable containing the names of all shell functions currently in the execution call stack   The element with index 0 is the name of  any currently-executing  shell  function   The bottom-most element  the one with the highest index  is  main    This variable exists only when a shell function is executing   Assignments to FUNCNAME have no effect and return an error status   If FUNCNAME is unset  it loses its special properties  even if it is subsequently reset         This variable can be used with BASH LINENO and BASH SOURCE   Each element of FUNCNAME has corresponding elements in BASH LINENO and BASH SOURCE to describe the call stack   For instance    FUNCNAME  i   was called from the file   BASH SOURCE  i 1    at  line  number    BASH LINENO  i     The caller builtin displays the current call stack using this information     Source  Bash manual

User · Answer

Info thanks to Bill Hernandez  I added some preferences I m adopting      bin bash function Usage        echo   Usage  show parameters   arg1    arg2            2  -eq 0     amp  amp  Usage          echo     echo    arguments called with ---- gt                  echo      1 ----------------------- gt    1             echo      2 ----------------------- gt    2             echo    path to me --------------- gt     0          sed  s  USER   USER g      echo    parent path -------------- gt     0          sed  s  USER   USER g      echo    my name ------------------ gt     0            echo     Cheers

User · Answer

You can use  0 to determine your script name  with full path  - to get the script name only you can trim that variable with  basename  0

User · Answer

I ve found this line to always work  regardless of whether the file is being sourced or run as a script   echo    BASH SOURCE    BASH SOURCE     - 1      If you want to follow symlinks use readlink on the path you get above  recursively or non-recursively   The reason the one-liner works is explained by the use of the BASH SOURCE environment variable and its associate FUNCNAME      BASH SOURCE      An array variable whose members are the source filenames where the corresponding shell function names in the FUNCNAME array variable are  defined   The shell function   FUNCNAME  i   is defined in the file   BASH SOURCE  i   and called from   BASH SOURCE  i 1         FUNCNAME      An array variable containing the names of all shell functions currently in the execution call stack   The element with index 0 is the name of  any currently-executing  shell  function   The bottom-most element  the one with the highest index  is  main    This variable exists only when a shell function is executing   Assignments to FUNCNAME have no effect and return an error status   If FUNCNAME is unset  it loses its special properties  even if it is subsequently reset         This variable can be used with BASH LINENO and BASH SOURCE   Each element of FUNCNAME has corresponding elements in BASH LINENO and BASH SOURCE to describe the call stack   For instance    FUNCNAME  i   was called from the file   BASH SOURCE  i 1    at  line  number    BASH LINENO  i     The caller builtin displays the current call stack using this information     Source  Bash manual

User · Answer

Here is what I came up with  inspired by Dimitre Radoulov s answer  which I upvoted  by the way    script   BASH SOURCE    -z   BASH SOURCE     amp  amp  script   0   echo  Called  script with    argument s     regardless of the way you call your script    path to script sh   or    path to script sh

User · Answer

You can use  0 to determine your script name  with full path  - to get the script name only you can trim that variable with  basename  0

User · Answer

These answers are correct for the cases they state but there is a still a problem if you run the script from another script using the  source  keyword  so that it runs in the same shell   In this case  you get the  0 of the calling script  And in this case  I don t think it is possible to get the name of the script itself   This is an edge case and should not be taken TOO seriously  If you run the script from another script directly  without  source    using  0 will work

User · Answer

if your invoke shell script like     home mike runme sh    0 is full name    home mike runme sh   basename  0 will get the base file name   runme sh   and you need to put this basic name into a variable like  filename   basename  0    and add your additional text   echo  You are running  filename    so your scripts like    home mike runme sh    bin bash  filename   basename  0  echo  You are running  filename

User · Answer

me  basename   0     For reading through a symlink1  which is usually not what you want  you usually don t want to confuse the user this way   try   me    basename    test -L   0   amp  amp  readlink   0     echo   0        IMO  that ll produce confusing output    I ran foo sh  but it s saying I m running bar sh    Must be a bug     Besides  one of the purposes of having differently-named symlinks is to provide different functionality based on the name it s called as  think gzip and gunzip on some platforms      1 That is  to resolve symlinks such that when the user executes foo sh which is actually a symlink to bar sh  you wish to use the resolved name bar sh rather than foo sh

User · Answer

You can use  0 to determine your script name  with full path  - to get the script name only you can trim that variable with  basename  0

User · Answer

somthing like this    export LC ALL en US UTF-8    bin bash    bin sh   ---------------------------------------------------------------------- start trash    ver  htrash sh v0 0 4   TRASH DIR    url to trash  MY USER  TRASH SIZE   Show Trash Folder Size  echo  Would you like to empty Trash   y n    read ans if    ans   y -o  ans   Y -o  ans   yes -o  ans   Yes -o  ans   YES   then echo   yes   cd  TRASH DIR  amp  amp   EMPTY TRASH fi if    ans   n -o  ans   N -o  ans   no -o  ans   No -o  ans   NO   then echo   no   fi  return  TRUE     -----------------------------------------------------------------------  start help    echo  HELP COMMANDS-----------------------------  echo  htest www                 open a homepage   echo  htest trash               empty trash        return  TRUE    end Help  -----------------------------------------------   homepage     return  TRUE    end cpdebtemp    -Case start   if no command line arg given   set val to Unknown if   -z  1   then   val      Unknown       elif   -n  1   then   otherwise make first arg as val   val  1 fi   use case statement to make decision for rental case  val in     trash   start trash        help   start help        www   firefox  homepage          echo  Sorry  I can not get a  val   for you     esac   Case stop

User · Answer

if your invoke shell script like     home mike runme sh    0 is full name    home mike runme sh   basename  0 will get the base file name   runme sh   and you need to put this basic name into a variable like  filename   basename  0    and add your additional text   echo  You are running  filename    so your scripts like    home mike runme sh    bin bash  filename   basename  0  echo  You are running  filename

[linux] How do I know the script file name in a Bash script?

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