Why is __dirname not defined in node REPL?

Question

From the node manual I see that I can get the directory of a file with __dirname, but from the REPL this seems to be undefined. Is this a misunderstanding on my

Answer 1

__dirname is only defined in scripts. It's not available in REPL.

try make a script a.js

console.log(__dirname);

and run it:

node a.js

you will see __dirname printed.

Added background explanation: __dirname means 'The directory of this script'. In REPL, you don't have a script. Hence, __dirname would not have any real meaning.

Answer 2

If you are using Node.js modules, __dirname and __filename don't exist.

From the Node.js documentation:

No require, exports, module.exports, __filename, __dirname

These CommonJS variables are not available in ES modules.

require can be imported into an ES module using module.createRequire().

Equivalents of __filename and __dirname can be created inside of each file via import.meta.url:

import { fileURLToPath } from 'url';
import { dirname } from 'path';

const __filename = fileURLToPath(import.meta.url);
const __dirname = dirname(__filename);

https://nodejs.org/api/esm.html#esm_no_require_exports_module_exports_filename_dirname

Answer 3

I was running a script from batch file as SYSTEM user and all variables like process.cwd() , path.resolve() and all other methods would give me path to C:\Windows\System32 folder instead of actual path. During experiments I noticed that when an error is thrown the stack contains a true path to the node file.

Here's a very hacky way to get true path by triggering an error and extracting path from e.stack. Do not use.

// this should be the name of currently executed file
const currentFilename = 'index.js';

function veryHackyGetFolder() {
  try {
    throw new Error();
  } catch(e) {
    const fullMsg = e.stack.toString();
    const beginning = fullMsg.indexOf('file:///') + 8;
    const end = fullMsg.indexOf('\/' + currentFilename);
    const dir = fullMsg.substr(beginning, end - beginning).replace(/\//g, '\\');
    return dir;
  }
}

Usage

const dir = veryHackyGetFolder();

Answer 4

Though its not the solution to this problem I would like to add it as it may help others.

You should have two underscores before dirname, not one underscore (__dirname not _dirname).

NodeJS Docs

Answer 5

As @qiao said, you can't use __dirname in the node repl. However, if you need need this value in the console, you can use path.resolve() or path.dirname(). Although, path.dirname() will just give you a "." so, probably not that helpful. Be sure to require('path').

Answer 6

If you got node __dirname not defined with node --experimental-modules, you can do :

const __dirname = path.dirname(import.meta.url)
                      .replace(/^file:\/\/\//, '') // can be usefull

Because othe example, work only with current/pwd directory not other directory.