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Find out current working directory of a process

Terminal - Find out current working directory of a process
readlink /proc/self/cwd
2011-04-14 23:14:28
User: linuts
Functions: readlink
2
Up
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Find out current working directory of a process
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Alternatives

There is 1 alternative - vote for the best!

Terminal - Alternatives
echo "${0%/*}"
2011-04-17 12:09:56
User: mhs
Functions: echo
Tags: Process Management parameter expansion special parameters
9
Up
Down
Find out the starting directory of a script

Invoked from within a shell script, this will print the directory in which the script resides. Doesn't depend on external tools, /proc/self/*, etc.. (`echo` is a shell builtin.) To see the *current working* directory of a script, use `pwd`.

Comments (6) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious
eval ls -l /proc/{$(pgrep -d, COMMAND)}/cwd
2011-04-14 13:41:58
User: splante
Functions: eval ls
Tags: Process Management
3
Up
Down
Find out current working directory of a process

This is an alternative to another command using two xargs. If it's a command you know there's only one of, you can just use:

ls -l /proc/$(pgrep COMMAND)/cwd
Show sample output | Comments (4) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious
echo COMMAND | xargs -ixxx ps -C xxx -o pid= | xargs -ixxx ls -l /proc/xxx/cwd
2009-02-25 05:49:03
User: ento
Functions: echo ls ps xargs
Tags: Process Management
2
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Down
Find out current working directory of a process
Comments (1) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious
mydir=$(cd $(dirname ${BASH_SOURCE:-$0});pwd)
2011-04-27 16:33:38
User: xeor
Functions: cd dirname
Tags: cd script pwd
0
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Find out the starting directory of a script

I submitted a command like this without $0 if $BASH_SOURCE is unset. Therefor, it did only work when using ./script, not using 'sh script'. This version handles both, and will set $mydir in a script to the current working directory. It also works on linux, osx and probably bsd.

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pwdx $(pgrep command)
2013-02-01 08:33:15
User: weidenrinde
Tags: Process Management
0
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Find out current working directory of a process

The pwdx command reports the current working directory of a process or processes.

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious

Know a better way?

If you can do better, submit your command here.

What others think

Unless the path is a link, readlink doesn't echo the path by default. It needs either '-e' or '-m' to echo whether or not the path is to a link.

Comment by eikenberry 108 weeks and 5 days ago

/proc/self/cwd is always a symlink (man proc)

Comment by linuts 108 weeks and 5 days ago

This is not really an "alternative" to some of the others, as this is the current working directory of the *current* process. A couple of the earlier alternatives are for finding the working directory of some other command, such as the apache executable or the currently running vim commands.

Your version is almost the same as the much simpler $PWD (or pwd command), except yours returns the canonical version of the directory which is handy. You could accomplish the same with

readlink -f $PWD

but that's not really easier.

Comment by splante 108 weeks and 5 days ago

Your point of view

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