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?

Answer 1

In bash you should get what you need like this:

#!/bin/bash

BASEDIR=$(dirname $0)
echo $BASEDIR

Answer 2

Assuming you're using bash

#!/bin/bash

current_dir=$(pwd)
script_dir=$(dirname $0)

echo $current_dir
echo $script_dir

This script, when ran, should print the directory that you're in, and then the directory the script is in, for example, when calling it from / (the script is in /home/mez/), it outputs

/
/home/mez

Remember, when assigning variables from the output of a command, wrap the command in $( and ) - or you'll not get the desired output. `

Answer 3

I'm not sure how to do it, but neither of the previous answers work. This is because $0 is the command as called. If you call the script foo like this './foo', then $0 = ./foo, not /path/to/foo like you want.

Answer 4

echo \pwd\/\dirname $0\

that should do the trick -- 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)

Answer 5

echo \pwd\/\dirname $0\ would NOT work in case that the script would be called with absolute path

Answer 6

Have a look at http://fritzthomas.com/open-source/linux/384-how-to-get-the-absolute-path-within-the-running-bash-script

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.

Here a slightly modified copy of the solution in case the other post vanishes....

This is 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

Almost the same 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

Answer 7

If you're using bash....

#!/bin/bash

pushd $(dirname "${0}") > /dev/null
basedir=$(pwd -L)
# Use "pwd -P" for the path without links. man bash for more info.
popd > /dev/null

echo "${basedir}"

Answer 8

This checks if directory exists and is writable

if [ -d "$Directory" -a -w "$Directory" ]
then
    #Statements
fi

-Muralikrishna.B