CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxbashscripting
Ma99uS
Ma99uS

Reputation: 10951

How to get script file path inside script itself when called through sym link

When I need to get path to the script file inside script itself I use something like this:

`dirname $0`

that works file until I call the script through sym link to it. In that case above code prints the location of the link instead the original file.

Is there a way to get the path of the original script file, not the link?

Thanks, Mike

Upvotes: 11

Views: 21418

Answers (5)

StefanKaerst
StefanKaerst

Reputation: 429

I suggest this one:

dirname $(realpath $0)

example:

skaerst@test01-centos7:~/Documents> ../test/path.sh 
dirname realpath: /home/skaerst/test

skaerst@test01-centos7:~/Documents> cat ../test/path.sh
#!/bin/bash

echo "dirname realpath: $(dirname $(realpath $0))"

works with symlinks too because realpath uses -P by default:

skaerst@test01-centos7:~/Documents> ln -s ../test/path.sh p
skaerst@test01-centos7:~/Documents> ./p
dirname realpath: /home/skaerst/test

realpath is available with coreutils >8.5, I guess

skaerst@test01-centos7:~/Documents> rpm -qf $(which realpath) $(which dirname)
coreutils-8.22-15.el7_2.1.x86_64
coreutils-8.22-15.el7_2.1.x86_64

hth

Regards

Stefan

Upvotes: 1

Marius Dalacu
Marius Dalacu

Reputation: 11

Dir=$(dirname $(readlink -f "$0"))

Upvotes: 1

lhunath
lhunath

Reputation: 125636

You really need to read the following BashFAQ article:

The truth is, the $0 hacks are NOT reliable, and they will fail whenever applications are started with a zeroth argument that is not the application's path. For example, login(1) will put a - in front of your application name in $0, causing breakage, and whenever you invoke an application that's in PATH $0 won't contain the path to your application but just the filename, which means you can't extract any location information out of it. There are a LOT more ways in which this can fail.

Bottom line: Don't rely on the hack, the truth is you cannot figure out where your script is, so use a configuration option to set the directory of your config files or whatever you need the script's path for.

Upvotes: 17

dsm
dsm

Reputation: 10395

if [ -L $0 ] ; then
    DIR=$(dirname $(readlink -f $0)) ;
else
    DIR=$(dirname $0) ;
fi ;

Upvotes: 17

soulmerge
soulmerge

Reputation: 75774

Use readlink for that:

readlink -f "$0"

Upvotes: 6

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