Bash script absolute path with OS X

Question

I am trying to obtain the absolute path to the currently running script on OS X.

I saw many replies going for readlink -f $0. However since OS X\'s

Answer 1

Since there is a realpath as others have pointed out:

// realpath.c
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main (int argc, char* argv[])
{
  if (argc > 1) {
    for (int argIter = 1; argIter < argc; ++argIter) {
      char *resolved_path_buffer = NULL;
      char *result = realpath(argv[argIter], resolved_path_buffer);

      puts(result);

      if (result != NULL) {
        free(result);
      }
    }
  }

  return 0;
}

Makefile:

#Makefile
OBJ = realpath.o

%.o: %.c
      $(CC) -c -o $@ $< $(CFLAGS)

realpath: $(OBJ)
      gcc -o $@ $^ $(CFLAGS)

Then compile with make and put in a soft link with:
ln -s $(pwd)/realpath /usr/local/bin/realpath

Answer 2

I needed a realpath replacement on OS X, one that operates correctly on paths with symlinks and parent references just like readlink -f would. This includes resolving symlinks in the path before resolving parent references; e.g. if you have installed the homebrew coreutils bottle, then run:

$ ln -s /var/log/cups /tmp/linkeddir  # symlink to another directory
$ greadlink -f /tmp/linkeddir/..      # canonical path of the link parent
/private/var/log

Note that readlink -f has resolved /tmp/linkeddir before resolving the .. parent dir reference. Of course, there is no readlink -f on Mac either.

So as part of the a bash implementation for realpath I re-implemented what a GNUlib canonicalize_filename_mode(path, CAN_ALL_BUT_LAST) function call does, in Bash 3.2; this is also the function call that GNU readlink -f makes:

# shellcheck shell=bash
set -euo pipefail

_contains() {
    # return true if first argument is present in the other arguments
    local elem value

    value="$1"
    shift

    for elem in "$@"; do 
        if [[ $elem == "$value" ]]; then
            return 0
        fi
    done
    return 1
}

_canonicalize_filename_mode() {
    # resolve any symlink targets, GNU readlink -f style
    # where every path component except the last should exist and is
    # resolved if it is a symlink. This is essentially a re-implementation
    # of canonicalize_filename_mode(path, CAN_ALL_BUT_LAST).
    # takes the path to canonicalize as first argument

    local path result component seen
    seen=()
    path="$1"
    result="/"
    if [[ $path != /* ]]; then  # add in current working dir if relative
        result="$PWD"
    fi
    while [[ -n $path ]]; do
        component="${path%%/*}"
        case "$component" in
            '') # empty because it started with /
                path="${path:1}" ;;
            .)  # ./ current directory, do nothing
                path="${path:1}" ;;
            ..) # ../ parent directory
                if [[ $result != "/" ]]; then  # not at the root?
                    result="${result%/*}"      # then remove one element from the path
                fi
                path="${path:2}" ;;
            *)
                # add this component to the result, remove from path
                if [[ $result != */ ]]; then
                    result="$result/"
                fi
                result="$result$component"
                path="${path:${#component}}"
                # element must exist, unless this is the final component
                if [[ $path =~ [^/] && ! -e $result ]]; then
                    echo "$1: No such file or directory" >&2
                    return 1
                fi
                # if the result is a link, prefix it to the path, to continue resolving
                if [[ -L $result ]]; then
                    if _contains "$result" "${seen[@]+"${seen[@]}"}"; then
                        # we've seen this link before, abort
                        echo "$1: Too many levels of symbolic links" >&2
                        return 1
                    fi
                    seen+=("$result")
                    path="$(readlink "$result")$path"
                    if [[ $path = /* ]]; then
                        # if the link is absolute, restart the result from /
                        result="/"
                    elif [[ $result != "/" ]]; then
                        # otherwise remove the basename of the link from the result
                        result="${result%/*}"
                    fi
                elif [[ $path =~ [^/] && ! -d $result ]]; then
                    # otherwise all but the last element must be a dir
                    echo "$1: Not a directory" >&2
                    return 1
                fi
                ;;
        esac
    done
    echo "$result"
}

It includes circular symlink detection, exiting if the same (intermediary) path is seen twice.

If all you need is readlink -f, then you can use the above as:

readlink() {
    if [[ $1 != -f ]]; then  # poor-man's option parsing
        # delegate to the standard readlink command
        command readlink "$@"
        return
    fi

    local path result seenerr
    shift
    seenerr=
    for path in "$@"; do
        # by default readlink suppresses error messages
        if ! result=$(_canonicalize_filename_mode "$path" 2>/dev/null); then
            seenerr=1
            continue
        fi
        echo "$result"
    done
    if [[ $seenerr ]]; then
        return 1;
    fi
}

For realpath, I also needed --relative-to and --relative-base support, which give you relative paths after canonicalizing:

_realpath() {
    # GNU realpath replacement for bash 3.2 (OS X)
    # accepts --relative-to= and --relative-base options
    # and produces canonical (relative or absolute) paths for each
    # argument on stdout, errors on stderr, and returns 0 on success
    # and 1 if at least 1 path triggered an error.

    local relative_to relative_base seenerr path

    relative_to=
    relative_base=
    seenerr=

    while [[ $# -gt 0 ]]; do
        case $1 in
            "--relative-to="*)
                relative_to=$(_canonicalize_filename_mode "${1#*=}")
                shift 1;;
            "--relative-base="*)
                relative_base=$(_canonicalize_filename_mode "${1#*=}")
                shift 1;;
            *)
                break;;
        esac
    done

    if [[
        -n $relative_to
        && -n $relative_base
        && ${relative_to#${relative_base}/} == "$relative_to"
    ]]; then
        # relative_to is not a subdir of relative_base -> ignore both
        relative_to=
        relative_base=
    elif [[ -z $relative_to && -n $relative_base ]]; then
        # if relative_to has not been set but relative_base has, then
        # set relative_to from relative_base, simplifies logic later on
        relative_to="$relative_base"
    fi

    for path in "$@"; do
        if ! real=$(_canonicalize_filename_mode "$path"); then
            seenerr=1
            continue
        fi

        # make path relative if so required
        if [[
            -n $relative_to
            && ( # path must not be outside relative_base to be made relative
                -z $relative_base || ${real#${relative_base}/} != "$real"
            )
        ]]; then
            local common_part parentrefs

            common_part="$relative_to"
            parentrefs=
            while [[ ${real#${common_part}/} == "$real" ]]; do
                common_part="$(dirname "$common_part")"
                parentrefs="..${parentrefs:+/$parentrefs}"
            done

            if [[ $common_part != "/" ]]; then
                real="${parentrefs:+${parentrefs}/}${real#${common_part}/}"
            fi
        fi

        echo "$real"
    done
    if [[ $seenerr ]]; then
        return 1
    fi
}

if ! command -v realpath > /dev/null 2>&1; then
    # realpath is not available on OSX unless you install the `coreutils` brew
    realpath() { _realpath "$@"; }
fi

I included unit tests in my Code Review request for this code.

Answer 3

abs_path () {    
   echo "$(cd $(dirname "$1");pwd)/$(basename "$1")"
}

dirname will give the directory name of /path/to/file, i.e. /path/to.

cd /path/to; pwd ensures that the path is absolute.

basename will give just the filename in /path/to/file, i.e.file.