CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxbash
Jimm
Jimm

Reputation: 8505

Invalid option for dirname

I have a simple script called abc.sh as follows, that sets the environment variables

#!/bin/bash
sourcePath () {
filename=`basename $0`

current_dir="./"$filename
if [ "$current_dir" = "$0" ]; then        SRC_DIR=$(pwd) 
         SRC_DIR=$(cd "$SRC_DIR/.."; pwd)
else        SRC_DIR=$(cd "$(dirname "$0")/.."; pwd)
fi
}

sourcePath
echo $SRC_DIR
export SRC_DIR

I would like this script to set the variable SRC_DIR in my current shell environment. Hence, when i do source abc.sh, i get an error saying invalid options to dirname. But if i run this file with ./abc.sh, i dont get any error, but then it wont export the variable

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2423

Answers (2)

Peter Westlake
Peter Westlake

Reputation: 5036

Part of the problem is that $0 has a different value when you source the script, because sourcing is just the same as typing commands directly to the shell. So when you run the script, $0 is abc.sh, but when you source it, $0 is /bin/bash. You can see this by setting the -x flag:

set -x
source abc.sh

But I can't be sure that this is the only problem, because when I source the script I don't get an error from dirname, and the script prints "/".

Upvotes: 3

Karoly Horvath
Karoly Horvath

Reputation: 96258

If you do source, then $0 won't change (won't be the name of your executable, e.g.: ./abc.sh).

Upvotes: 0

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