How to get the current directory in a C program?

Question

I'm making a C program where I need to get the directory that the program is started from. This program is written for UNIX computers. I've been looking at opendir() and telldir(), but telldir() returns a off_t (long int), so it really doesn't help me.

How can I get the current path in a string (char array)?

Answer 1

Have you had a look at getcwd()?

#include <unistd.h>
char *getcwd(char *buf, size_t size);

Simple example:

#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <limits.h>

int main() {
   char cwd[PATH_MAX];
   if (getcwd(cwd, sizeof(cwd)) != NULL) {
       printf("Current working dir: %s\n", cwd);
   } else {
       perror("getcwd() error");
       return 1;
   }
   return 0;
}

Answer 2

Look up the man page for getcwd.

Answer 3

Although the question is tagged Unix, people also get to visit it when their target platform is Windows, and the answer for Windows is the GetCurrentDirectory() function:

DWORD WINAPI GetCurrentDirectory(
  _In_  DWORD  nBufferLength,
  _Out_ LPTSTR lpBuffer
);

These answers apply to both C and C++ code.

^{Link suggested by user4581301 in a comment to another question, and verified as the current top choice with a Google search 'site:microsoft.com getcurrentdirectory'.}

Answer 4

#include <stdio.h>  /* defines FILENAME_MAX */
//#define WINDOWS  /* uncomment this line to use it for windows.*/
#ifdef WINDOWS
#include <direct.h>
#define GetCurrentDir _getcwd
#else
#include <unistd.h>
#define GetCurrentDir getcwd
#endif

int main(){
  char buff[FILENAME_MAX];
  GetCurrentDir( buff, FILENAME_MAX );
  printf("Current working dir: %s\n", buff);
  return 1;
}

Answer 5

Note that getcwd(3) is also available in Microsoft's libc: getcwd(3), and works the same way you'd expect.

Must link with -loldnames (oldnames.lib, which is done automatically in most cases), or use _getcwd(). The unprefixed version is unavailable under Windows RT.