How do I get the full path to a Perl script that is executing

Question

I have Perl script and need to determine the full path and filename of the script during execution  I discovered that depending on how you call the script  0 varies and sometimes contains the fullpath filename and sometimes just filename  Because the working directory can vary as well I can t think of a way to reliably get the fullpath filename of the script   Anyone got a solution

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usr bin perl -w use strict    my  path    0   path    s       g  if   path             if   path                 path                  1                    path    1          else        path                  1                 my  path b    1      my  path a    pwd       chop  path a        path    path a      path b            else     path    pwd     chop  path      path            path    s         g     print   n path n      DD

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The problem with   FILE   is that it will print the core module   pm  path not necessarily the   cgi  or    pl  script path that is running  I guess it depends on what your goal is   It seems to me that Cwd just needs to be updated for mod perl  Here is my suggestion   my  path   use File  Basename  my  file   basename  ENV SCRIPT NAME     if  exists  ENV MOD PERL   amp  amp    ENV MOD PERL API VERSION   lt  2       if    O    Win          path    echo  cd        chop  path       path    s      g       path     ENV SCRIPT NAME         else        path    pwd        path       file           add support for other operating systems   else     require Cwd     path   Cwd  getcwd      file     print  path    Please add any suggestions

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Have you tried    ENV  SCRIPT NAME     or  use FindBin   Bin   print  The script is located in  Bin  n     It really depends on how it s being called and if it s CGI or being run from a normal shell  etc

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The problem with   FILE   is that it will print the core module   pm  path not necessarily the   cgi  or    pl  script path that is running  I guess it depends on what your goal is   It seems to me that Cwd just needs to be updated for mod perl  Here is my suggestion   my  path   use File  Basename  my  file   basename  ENV SCRIPT NAME     if  exists  ENV MOD PERL   amp  amp    ENV MOD PERL API VERSION   lt  2       if    O    Win          path    echo  cd        chop  path       path    s      g       path     ENV SCRIPT NAME         else        path    pwd        path       file           add support for other operating systems   else     require Cwd     path   Cwd  getcwd      file     print  path    Please add any suggestions

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Use File  Spec  File  Spec- gt rel2abs    FILE        http   perldoc perl org File Spec Unix html

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Some short background   Unfortunately the Unix API doesn t provide a running program with the full path to the executable   In fact  the program executing yours can provide whatever it wants in the field that normally tells your program what it is   There are  as all the answers point out  various heuristics for finding likely candidates   But nothing short of searching the entire filesystem will always work  and even that will fail if the executable is moved or removed   But you don t want the Perl executable  which is what s actually running  but the script it is executing   And Perl needs to know where the script is to find it   It stores this in   FILE    while  0 is from the Unix API   This can still be a relative path  so take Mark s suggestion and canonize it with File  Spec- gt rel2abs    FILE

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usr bin perl -w use strict    my  path    0   path    s       g  if   path             if   path                 path                  1                    path    1          else        path                  1                 my  path b    1      my  path a    pwd       chop  path a        path    path a      path b            else     path    pwd     chop  path      path            path    s         g     print   n path n      DD

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On  nix  you likely have the  whereis  command  which searches your  PATH looking for a binary with a given name   If  0 doesn t contain the full path name  running whereis  scriptname and saving the result into a variable should tell you where the script is located

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All the library-free solutions don t actually work for more than a few ways to write a path  think     or  bla x    bin   x     etc  My solution looks like below  I have one quirk  I don t have the faintest idea why I have to run the replacements twice  If I don t  I get a spurious      or        Apart from that  it seems quite robust to me     my  callpath    0    my  pwd    pwd   chomp  pwd        if called relative - gt  add pwd in front   if   callpath              callpath    pwd      callpath           do the cleanup    callpath    s                                    starts with    - gt  drop    callpath    s        g                               - gt       callpath    s        g                               - gt            twice      callpath    s                g                    xxx     - gt       callpath    s                g                    xxx     - gt       twice     my  calldir    callpath     calldir    s                 1

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What s wrong with   X       usr bin env perl lt br gt  print  This is executed by   X n     Would give you the full path to the Perl binary being used   Evert

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There are a few ways     0 is the currently executing script as provided by POSIX  relative to the current working directory if the script is at or below the CWD Additionally  cwd    getcwd   and abs path   are provided by the Cwd module and tell you where the script is being run from The module FindBin provides the  Bin  amp   RealBin variables that usually are the path to the executing script  this module also provides  Script  amp   RealScript that are the name of the script   FILE   is the actual file that the Perl interpreter deals with during compilation  including its full path    I ve seen the first three   0  the Cwd module and the FindBin module  fail under mod perl spectacularly  producing worthless output such as     or an empty string   In such environments  I use   FILE   and get the path from that using the File  Basename module   use File  Basename  my  dirname   dirname   FILE

User · Answer

Getting the absolute path to  0 or   FILE   is what you want   The only trouble is if someone did a chdir   and the  0 was relative -- then you need to get the absolute path in a BEGIN   to prevent any surprises   FindBin tries to go one better and grovel around in the  PATH for something matching the basename  0   but there are times when that does far-too-surprising things  specifically   when the file is  right in front of you  in the cwd    File  Fu has File  Fu- gt program name and File  Fu- gt program dir for this

User · Answer

You could use FindBin  Cwd  File  Basename  or a combination of them   They re all in the base distribution of Perl IIRC   I used Cwd in the past   Cwd   use Cwd qw abs path   my  path   abs path  0   print   path n

User · Answer

What s wrong with   X       usr bin env perl lt br gt  print  This is executed by   X n     Would give you the full path to the Perl binary being used   Evert

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In order to get the path to the directory containing my script I used a combination of answers given already      usr bin perl use strict  use warnings  use File  Spec  use File  Basename   my  dir   dirname File  Spec- gt rel2abs   FILE

User · Answer

I think the module you re looking for is FindBin      usr bin perl use FindBin    0    stealth   print  The actual path to this is   FindBin  Bin  FindBin  Script n

User · Answer

Some short background   Unfortunately the Unix API doesn t provide a running program with the full path to the executable   In fact  the program executing yours can provide whatever it wants in the field that normally tells your program what it is   There are  as all the answers point out  various heuristics for finding likely candidates   But nothing short of searching the entire filesystem will always work  and even that will fail if the executable is moved or removed   But you don t want the Perl executable  which is what s actually running  but the script it is executing   And Perl needs to know where the script is to find it   It stores this in   FILE    while  0 is from the Unix API   This can still be a relative path  so take Mark s suggestion and canonize it with File  Spec- gt rel2abs    FILE

User · Answer

On  nix  you likely have the  whereis  command  which searches your  PATH looking for a binary with a given name   If  0 doesn t contain the full path name  running whereis  scriptname and saving the result into a variable should tell you where the script is located

User · Answer

Some short background   Unfortunately the Unix API doesn t provide a running program with the full path to the executable   In fact  the program executing yours can provide whatever it wants in the field that normally tells your program what it is   There are  as all the answers point out  various heuristics for finding likely candidates   But nothing short of searching the entire filesystem will always work  and even that will fail if the executable is moved or removed   But you don t want the Perl executable  which is what s actually running  but the script it is executing   And Perl needs to know where the script is to find it   It stores this in   FILE    while  0 is from the Unix API   This can still be a relative path  so take Mark s suggestion and canonize it with File  Spec- gt rel2abs    FILE

User · Answer

Have you tried    ENV  SCRIPT NAME     or  use FindBin   Bin   print  The script is located in  Bin  n     It really depends on how it s being called and if it s CGI or being run from a normal shell  etc

User · Answer

None of the  top  answers were right for me  The problem with using FindBin   Bin  or Cwd is that they return absolute path with all symbolic links resolved  In my case I needed the exact path with symbolic links present - the same as returns Unix command  pwd  and not  pwd -P   The following function provides the solution   sub get script full path       use File  Basename      use File  Spec      use Cwd qw chdir cwd       my  curr dir   cwd        chdir dirname  0        my  dir    ENV PWD       chdir   curr dir       return File  Spec- gt catfile  dir  basename  0

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Without any external modules  valid for shell  works well even with         my  self    pwd   chomp  self   self        1 if  0                 keep the filename only print  self  self n     test      my temp Host  perl   host-mod pl  self  my temp Host host-mod pl     my temp Host    host-mod pl  self  my temp Host host-mod pl     my temp Host     Host   host-mod pl  self  my temp Host host-mod pl

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use strict   use warnings   use Cwd  abs path       sub ResolveMyProductBaseDir               Start - Resolve the ProductBaseDir          resolve the run dir where this scripts is placed         my  ScriptAbsolutPath   abs path  0              debug print    ScriptAbsolutPath is  ScriptAbsolutPath  n             ScriptAbsolutPath    m                     a-z                RunDir    1             debug print    1 is  1  n             change the   s to   s if we are on Windows          RunDir   s       gi            my  DirParts   split         RunDir             for  my  count 0   count  lt  4   count        pop  DirParts                 my  ProductBaseDir   join          DirParts                Stop - Resolve the ProductBaseDir          debug print  ResolveMyProductBaseDir  ProductBaseDir is  ProductBaseDir  n             return  ProductBaseDir           eof sub

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The problem with just using dirname   FILE    is that it doesn t follow symlinks  I had to use this for my script to follow the symlink to the actual file location   use File  Basename  my  script dir   undef  if -l   FILE         script dir   dirname readlink   FILE        else      script dir   dirname   FILE

User · Answer

Are you looking for this    my  thisfile    1 if  0                                print  You are running  thisfile now  n     The output will look like this   You are running MyFileName pl now    It works on both Windows and Unix

User · Answer

Have you tried    ENV  SCRIPT NAME     or  use FindBin   Bin   print  The script is located in  Bin  n     It really depends on how it s being called and if it s CGI or being run from a normal shell  etc

User · Answer

You could use FindBin  Cwd  File  Basename  or a combination of them   They re all in the base distribution of Perl IIRC   I used Cwd in the past   Cwd   use Cwd qw abs path   my  path   abs path  0   print   path n

User · Answer

Use File  Spec  File  Spec- gt rel2abs    FILE        http   perldoc perl org File Spec Unix html

User · Answer

Are you looking for this    my  thisfile    1 if  0                                print  You are running  thisfile now  n     The output will look like this   You are running MyFileName pl now    It works on both Windows and Unix

User · Answer

There s no need to use external modules  with just one line you can have the file name and relative path  If you are using modules and need to apply a path relative to the script directory  the relative path is enough    0    m                   print  full path   1  file name   2 n

User · Answer

Getting the absolute path to  0 or   FILE   is what you want   The only trouble is if someone did a chdir   and the  0 was relative -- then you need to get the absolute path in a BEGIN   to prevent any surprises   FindBin tries to go one better and grovel around in the  PATH for something matching the basename  0   but there are times when that does far-too-surprising things  specifically   when the file is  right in front of you  in the cwd    File  Fu has File  Fu- gt program name and File  Fu- gt program dir for this

User · Answer

On Windows using dirname and abs path together worked best for me   use File  Basename  use Cwd qw abs path      absolute path of the directory containing the executing script my  abs dirname   dirname abs path  0    print   ndirname abs path   0   - gt   abs dirname n     here s why     this gives the answer I want in relative path form  not absolute my  rel dirname   dirname   FILE      print  dirname   FILE    - gt   rel dirname n       this gives the slightly wrong answer  but in the form I want  my  full filepath   abs path  0   print  abs path   0  - gt   full filepath n

User · Answer

There s no need to use external modules  with just one line you can have the file name and relative path  If you are using modules and need to apply a path relative to the script directory  the relative path is enough    0    m                   print  full path   1  file name   2 n

User · Answer

Some short background   Unfortunately the Unix API doesn t provide a running program with the full path to the executable   In fact  the program executing yours can provide whatever it wants in the field that normally tells your program what it is   There are  as all the answers point out  various heuristics for finding likely candidates   But nothing short of searching the entire filesystem will always work  and even that will fail if the executable is moved or removed   But you don t want the Perl executable  which is what s actually running  but the script it is executing   And Perl needs to know where the script is to find it   It stores this in   FILE    while  0 is from the Unix API   This can still be a relative path  so take Mark s suggestion and canonize it with File  Spec- gt rel2abs    FILE

User · Answer

0 is typically the name of your program  so how about this   use Cwd  abs path   print abs path  0     Seems to me that this should work as abs path knows if you are using a relative or absolute path   Update For anyone reading this years later  you should read Drew s answer  It s much better than mine

User · Answer

In order to get the path to the directory containing my script I used a combination of answers given already      usr bin perl use strict  use warnings  use File  Spec  use File  Basename   my  dir   dirname File  Spec- gt rel2abs   FILE

User · Answer

I think the module you re looking for is FindBin      usr bin perl use FindBin    0    stealth   print  The actual path to this is   FindBin  Bin  FindBin  Script n

User · Answer

Have you tried    ENV  SCRIPT NAME     or  use FindBin   Bin   print  The script is located in  Bin  n     It really depends on how it s being called and if it s CGI or being run from a normal shell  etc

User · Answer

0 is typically the name of your program  so how about this   use Cwd  abs path   print abs path  0     Seems to me that this should work as abs path knows if you are using a relative or absolute path   Update For anyone reading this years later  you should read Drew s answer  It s much better than mine

User · Answer

There are a few ways     0 is the currently executing script as provided by POSIX  relative to the current working directory if the script is at or below the CWD Additionally  cwd    getcwd   and abs path   are provided by the Cwd module and tell you where the script is being run from The module FindBin provides the  Bin  amp   RealBin variables that usually are the path to the executing script  this module also provides  Script  amp   RealScript that are the name of the script   FILE   is the actual file that the Perl interpreter deals with during compilation  including its full path    I ve seen the first three   0  the Cwd module and the FindBin module  fail under mod perl spectacularly  producing worthless output such as     or an empty string   In such environments  I use   FILE   and get the path from that using the File  Basename module   use File  Basename  my  dirname   dirname   FILE

User · Answer

Without any external modules  valid for shell  works well even with         my  self    pwd   chomp  self   self        1 if  0                 keep the filename only print  self  self n     test      my temp Host  perl   host-mod pl  self  my temp Host host-mod pl     my temp Host    host-mod pl  self  my temp Host host-mod pl     my temp Host     Host   host-mod pl  self  my temp Host host-mod pl

User · Answer

There are a few ways     0 is the currently executing script as provided by POSIX  relative to the current working directory if the script is at or below the CWD Additionally  cwd    getcwd   and abs path   are provided by the Cwd module and tell you where the script is being run from The module FindBin provides the  Bin  amp   RealBin variables that usually are the path to the executing script  this module also provides  Script  amp   RealScript that are the name of the script   FILE   is the actual file that the Perl interpreter deals with during compilation  including its full path    I ve seen the first three   0  the Cwd module and the FindBin module  fail under mod perl spectacularly  producing worthless output such as     or an empty string   In such environments  I use   FILE   and get the path from that using the File  Basename module   use File  Basename  my  dirname   dirname   FILE

User · Answer

use File  Basename  use Cwd  abs path   print dirname abs path   FILE        Drew s answer gave me        cat  gt testdirname use File  Basename  print dirname   FILE       perl testdirname    perl -v  This is perl 5  version 28  subversion 1  v5 28 1  built for x86 64-linux-gnu-thread-multi  1

User · Answer

On  nix  you likely have the  whereis  command  which searches your  PATH looking for a binary with a given name   If  0 doesn t contain the full path name  running whereis  scriptname and saving the result into a variable should tell you where the script is located

User · Answer

perlfaq8 answers a very similar question with using the rel2abs   function on  0  That function can be found in File  Spec

User · Answer

use strict   use warnings   use Cwd  abs path       sub ResolveMyProductBaseDir               Start - Resolve the ProductBaseDir          resolve the run dir where this scripts is placed         my  ScriptAbsolutPath   abs path  0              debug print    ScriptAbsolutPath is  ScriptAbsolutPath  n             ScriptAbsolutPath    m                     a-z                RunDir    1             debug print    1 is  1  n             change the   s to   s if we are on Windows          RunDir   s       gi            my  DirParts   split         RunDir             for  my  count 0   count  lt  4   count        pop  DirParts                 my  ProductBaseDir   join          DirParts                Stop - Resolve the ProductBaseDir          debug print  ResolveMyProductBaseDir  ProductBaseDir is  ProductBaseDir  n             return  ProductBaseDir           eof sub

User · Answer

Getting the absolute path to  0 or   FILE   is what you want   The only trouble is if someone did a chdir   and the  0 was relative -- then you need to get the absolute path in a BEGIN   to prevent any surprises   FindBin tries to go one better and grovel around in the  PATH for something matching the basename  0   but there are times when that does far-too-surprising things  specifically   when the file is  right in front of you  in the cwd    File  Fu has File  Fu- gt program name and File  Fu- gt program dir for this

User · Answer

Getting the absolute path to  0 or   FILE   is what you want   The only trouble is if someone did a chdir   and the  0 was relative -- then you need to get the absolute path in a BEGIN   to prevent any surprises   FindBin tries to go one better and grovel around in the  PATH for something matching the basename  0   but there are times when that does far-too-surprising things  specifically   when the file is  right in front of you  in the cwd    File  Fu has File  Fu- gt program name and File  Fu- gt program dir for this

User · Answer

I think the module you re looking for is FindBin      usr bin perl use FindBin    0    stealth   print  The actual path to this is   FindBin  Bin  FindBin  Script n

User · Answer

The problem with just using dirname   FILE    is that it doesn t follow symlinks  I had to use this for my script to follow the symlink to the actual file location   use File  Basename  my  script dir   undef  if -l   FILE         script dir   dirname readlink   FILE        else      script dir   dirname   FILE

User · Answer

You could use FindBin  Cwd  File  Basename  or a combination of them   They re all in the base distribution of Perl IIRC   I used Cwd in the past   Cwd   use Cwd qw abs path   my  path   abs path  0   print   path n

User · Answer

There are a few ways     0 is the currently executing script as provided by POSIX  relative to the current working directory if the script is at or below the CWD Additionally  cwd    getcwd   and abs path   are provided by the Cwd module and tell you where the script is being run from The module FindBin provides the  Bin  amp   RealBin variables that usually are the path to the executing script  this module also provides  Script  amp   RealScript that are the name of the script   FILE   is the actual file that the Perl interpreter deals with during compilation  including its full path    I ve seen the first three   0  the Cwd module and the FindBin module  fail under mod perl spectacularly  producing worthless output such as     or an empty string   In such environments  I use   FILE   and get the path from that using the File  Basename module   use File  Basename  my  dirname   dirname   FILE

User · Answer

Use File  Spec  File  Spec- gt rel2abs    FILE        http   perldoc perl org File Spec Unix html

User · Answer

I think the module you re looking for is FindBin      usr bin perl use FindBin    0    stealth   print  The actual path to this is   FindBin  Bin  FindBin  Script n

User · Answer

All the library-free solutions don t actually work for more than a few ways to write a path  think     or  bla x    bin   x     etc  My solution looks like below  I have one quirk  I don t have the faintest idea why I have to run the replacements twice  If I don t  I get a spurious      or        Apart from that  it seems quite robust to me     my  callpath    0    my  pwd    pwd   chomp  pwd        if called relative - gt  add pwd in front   if   callpath              callpath    pwd      callpath           do the cleanup    callpath    s                                    starts with    - gt  drop    callpath    s        g                               - gt       callpath    s        g                               - gt            twice      callpath    s                g                    xxx     - gt       callpath    s                g                    xxx     - gt       twice     my  calldir    callpath     calldir    s                 1

User · Answer

perlfaq8 answers a very similar question with using the rel2abs   function on  0  That function can be found in File  Spec

User · Answer

perlfaq8 answers a very similar question with using the rel2abs   function on  0  That function can be found in File  Spec

User · Answer

perlfaq8 answers a very similar question with using the rel2abs   function on  0  That function can be found in File  Spec

User · Answer

0 is typically the name of your program  so how about this   use Cwd  abs path   print abs path  0     Seems to me that this should work as abs path knows if you are using a relative or absolute path   Update For anyone reading this years later  you should read Drew s answer  It s much better than mine

User · Answer

Use File  Spec  File  Spec- gt rel2abs    FILE        http   perldoc perl org File Spec Unix html

User · Answer

0 is typically the name of your program  so how about this   use Cwd  abs path   print abs path  0     Seems to me that this should work as abs path knows if you are using a relative or absolute path   Update For anyone reading this years later  you should read Drew s answer  It s much better than mine

User · Answer

None of the  top  answers were right for me  The problem with using FindBin   Bin  or Cwd is that they return absolute path with all symbolic links resolved  In my case I needed the exact path with symbolic links present - the same as returns Unix command  pwd  and not  pwd -P   The following function provides the solution   sub get script full path       use File  Basename      use File  Spec      use Cwd qw chdir cwd       my  curr dir   cwd        chdir dirname  0        my  dir    ENV PWD       chdir   curr dir       return File  Spec- gt catfile  dir  basename  0

User · Answer

You could use FindBin  Cwd  File  Basename  or a combination of them   They re all in the base distribution of Perl IIRC   I used Cwd in the past   Cwd   use Cwd qw abs path   my  path   abs path  0   print   path n

User · Answer

On Windows using dirname and abs path together worked best for me   use File  Basename  use Cwd qw abs path      absolute path of the directory containing the executing script my  abs dirname   dirname abs path  0    print   ndirname abs path   0   - gt   abs dirname n     here s why     this gives the answer I want in relative path form  not absolute my  rel dirname   dirname   FILE      print  dirname   FILE    - gt   rel dirname n       this gives the slightly wrong answer  but in the form I want  my  full filepath   abs path  0   print  abs path   0  - gt   full filepath n

User · Answer

use File  Basename  use Cwd  abs path   print dirname abs path   FILE        Drew s answer gave me        cat  gt testdirname use File  Basename  print dirname   FILE       perl testdirname    perl -v  This is perl 5  version 28  subversion 1  v5 28 1  built for x86 64-linux-gnu-thread-multi  1

User · Answer

On  nix  you likely have the  whereis  command  which searches your  PATH looking for a binary with a given name   If  0 doesn t contain the full path name  running whereis  scriptname and saving the result into a variable should tell you where the script is located

[perl] How do I get the full path to a Perl script that is executing?

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