finding the absolute directory

Question

Here is the scenario:

foo/
> data/
> stuff/
> scripts/ -> /.../generic/scripts

When calling foo/scripts/bar.sh from any location (other folder or inside the folder), I would like to be able for the script to use foo/data and foo/stuff

However, if I simply use foo_dir='dirname $0'/.. then it'll go down the directory pointed by the symbolic link! (And obtain generic instead of foo!)

If I use some pattern to eat up the end of $0, then it's not working either since you could also call the script from inside the directory.

So, in the end... The only thing I have found is this extremely ugly stuff:

dir=`dirname $0`
cd $dir
dir=`pwd | sed -r 's_/[^/]+$__'`
cd -

...but I'm sure there is a better way, isn't there?

What I used:

dir=$( dirname $( cd `dirname $0`; pwd ) )

Dunno if it is perfect but it seems to behave as expected.

Answer 1

Sorry not reading your question more carefully the first time.

Instead of:

foo_dir = $(dirname $0)/..

how about:

foo_dir = $(dirname $(dirname $0))

However, this only works if there are at least one directory component in $0. Do you have that guarantee?

Answer 2

You can use the following one-liner:

DIR="$(cd "$( dirname "$0" )" && pwd )"

Answer 3

Yes, .. in the presence of symlinks is a real problem. Rob Pike wrote a whole paper about this problem.

I suggest you avoid .. by using dirname with an absolute pathname, thus:

case $0 in
  /*) where="$0" ;;
  *)  where="$(pwd)/$0" ;;
esac
# postcondition: $where is an absolute pathname for script
# N.B $where = .../foo/scripts/command

base="$(dirname "$(dirname "$where")")"
# postcondition: $base = .../foo

resource="$base/data"

I actually use the first idiom (recover an absolute pathname from a possibly relative one) that I have a script just for this in my ~/bin directory.

Once you are dealing in absolute pathnames, dirname behaves sensibly.

Answer 4

Okay, so what you want is for the script being accessed through the symlink to be able to use files relative to the symlink, right? And for that to work even if the path used is absolute, relative, relative from inside the same directory, relative from a subdirectory, etc?

This is indeed not simple. Surprisingly unsimple, in fact - many programming languages have an 'abspath' function which would solve this problem in a flash. However, i do not believe there is such a function in the standard shell script toolkit.

However, you can build one quite simply, with a sed one-liner:

abspath() {
    { [[ "$1" =~ ^/ ]] && echo "$1" || echo "$(pwd)/$1"; } | sed -r ':. s#(/|^)\./#\1#g; t .; :: s#[^/]{1,}/\.\./##; t :'
}
foo_dir=$(dirname $(abspath $0))

I believe that this is entirely general, and will work for paths containing any amount of ./ and ../.

It does use regular expressions a bit, though,

Answer 5

Your post is a little rambling and some of the statements seem to be contradictory, but if my understanding is correct, you have a $0 of the form foo/scripts/bar.sh, and you're trying to extract the foo part. You furthermore guarantee that there will always be at least two levels of directories in that path (if you only have bar.sh, you're toast). Then you can just strip the last two components of the path:

DIR=${0%/*/*}

You could call your script through scripts/bar.sh, though, in which case the simple pattern replacement wouldn't work. Not to mention calling the script via $PATH. You can make it conditional:

case $0 in
  */*/*) DIR=${0%/*/*};;
  ?*/*) DIR=.;;
  /*) echo 1>&2 "Storing $0 in the root directory is not supported, aborting."
      exit 125;;
  *) # The script was called through the `PATH`
    IFS=:; set -f; unset DIR
    for d in $PATH; do
      if [ -x "$d/$0" ]; then
        # If you put relative directories in your PATH, you get what you deserve.
        DIR=${d%/*};;
      fi
    done
    if [ -z "$DIR" ]; then
      echo 1>&2 "$0: Fatal error: I can't find myself."
      exit 125
    fi
    unset IFS; set +f;;
esac

Answer 6

Just call out to Perl:

abspath=$(perl -MCwd -MFile::Basename -e 'print abs_path(dirname($ARGV[0]))' $0)

Note that abs_path(dirname(...)) may not be the same as dirname(abs_path(...)).

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_{(Edit: Added -MFile::Basename)}