How do I get the directory that a program is runni

Question

Is there a platform-agnostic and filesystem-agnostic method to obtain the full path of the directory from where a program is running using C/C++? Not to be confused with the current working directory. (Please don't suggest libraries unless they're standard ones like clib or STL.)

(If there's no platform/filesystem-agnostic method, suggestions that work in Windows and Linux for specific filesystems are welcome too.)

Answer 1

Here's code to get the full path to the executing app:

Windows:

int bytes = GetModuleFileName(NULL, pBuf, len);
if(bytes == 0)
    return -1;
else
    return bytes;

Linux:

char szTmp[32];
sprintf(szTmp, "/proc/%d/exe", getpid());
int bytes = MIN(readlink(szTmp, pBuf, len), len - 1);
if(bytes >= 0)
    pBuf[bytes] = '\0';
return bytes;

Answer 2

A library solution (although I know this was not asked for). If you happen to use Qt: QCoreApplication::applicationDirPath()

Answer 3

I know it is very late at the day to throw an answer at this one but I found that none of the answers were as useful to me as my own solution. A very simple way to get the path from your CWD to your bin folder is like this:

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    std::string argv_str(argv[0]);
    std::string base = argv_str.substr(0, argv_str.find_last_of("/"));
}

You can now just use this as a base for your relative path. So for example I have this directory structure:

main
  ----> test
  ----> src
  ----> bin

and I want to compile my source code to bin and write a log to test I can just add this line to my code.

std::string pathToWrite = base + "/../test/test.log";

I have tried this approach on Linux using full path, alias etc. and it works just fine.

NOTE:

If you are on windows you should use a '\' as the file separator not '/'. You will have to escape this too for example:

std::string base = argv[0].substr(0, argv[0].find_last_of("\\"));

I think this should work but haven't tested, so comment would be appreciated if it works or a fix if not.

Answer 4

#include <windows.h>
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);
}

Answer 5

On POSIX platforms, you can use getcwd().

On Windows, you may use _getcwd(), as use of getcwd() has been deprecated.

For standard libraries, if Boost were standard enough for you, I would have suggested Boost::filesystem, but they seem to have removed path normalization from the proposal. You may have to wait until TR2 becomes readily available for a fully standard solution.

Answer 6

As Minok mentioned, there is no such functionality specified ini C standard or C++ standard. This is considered to be purely OS-specific feature and it is specified in POSIX standard, for example.

Thorsten79 has given good suggestion, it is Boost.Filesystem library. However, it may be inconvenient in case you don't want to have any link-time dependencies in binary form for your program.

A good alternative I would recommend is collection of 100% headers-only STLSoft C++ Libraries Matthew Wilson (author of must-read books about C++). There is portable facade PlatformSTL gives access to system-specific API: WinSTL for Windows and UnixSTL on Unix, so it is portable solution. All the system-specific elements are specified with use of traits and policies, so it is extensible framework. There is filesystem library provided, of course.