how to get the current executable directory?

[JUANDENT]

Hi,

filesystem::current_path() returns current working directory but I need the directory from which the executing program was launched. Is there a way?

Regards,
Juan

[Ganado]

Without having already saved the information prior in the execution of the program, there isn't a cross-platform way I know of.

On Windows, you can use the API call GetModuleFileName.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/libloaderapi/nf-libloaderapi-getmodulefilenamea

[Thomas1965]

Not sure if it works with your compiler, but argv[0] gives the fullname of the app so you can extract the directory.

[Ganado]

argv[0] doesn't always give the full path of the app, it can just give the exe name, e.g. when the application is simply started from the local directory. Also, on some platforms I think you can arbitrarily manipulate what gets put into argv[0], but I'm not too familiar with this.

(Edit: To clarify, it depends on the shell you're using, and not the C++ program itself, as far as I can tell)

[helios]

argv[0] will give an arbitrary value set by the environment that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the path to the current process' executable.
On Windows, GetModuleFileName() is the correct solution. I imagine there are equivalent functions on other platforms.

[uplime]

Some tools even let you set it on the fly, like ZSH

nickchambers@qa ~ % code/arg0
code/arg0
nickchambers@qa ~ % ARGV0=thunderfury code/arg0
thunderfury

[JUANDENT]

GetModuleFileName works!!
Thanks!!

Juan