How to access calling folder when Ruby script is run as executable?

Question

I have a .rb script that access and edit all .txt files in same directory with Dir.glob('*.txt') do |rb_file|

If I call it from terminal ruby myscript.rb all works fine.

Then I made an executable, launched with double click on Mac OS, as explained at this and this answers. I started file with #!/usr/bin/env ruby, gave permissions chmod +x myscript.rb, and opened it with terminal.

Ruby is working but when I try to access files in the same directory, the script can't find them. In fact, the script look for these files in /Users/myname directory.

How can I access the original directory where the double clicked file is?

I tried with ./ without success. Absolute path is not an option, unless programmatically retrieved.

Thank you

Did you ever figure this out?

Weston Ganger
– Weston Ganger

2016-10-26 17:42:36 +00:00
Commented Oct 26, 2016 at 17:42 — Weston Ganger
– Weston Ganger, Commented Oct 26, 2016 at 17:42

Philip Hallstrom · Accepted Answer · 2015-11-19 19:39:59Z

0

If I understand you right, you should be able to use this to get the directory the ruby script is in regardless of how you invoke it.

File.dirname(File.expand_path(__FILE__))

If I make a simple script that simply puts the above and place it in ~/tmp/foo.rb this is the output. My prompt is my current directory followed by a '$'. In every case the same value is returned.

~/tmp $ ruby foo.rb
/Users/philip/tmp
~ $ ruby tmp/foo.rb
/Users/philip/tmp
~ $ ruby /Users/philip/tmp/foo.rb
/Users/philip/tmp
~ $ cd /
/ $ ruby /Users/philip/tmp/foo.rb
/Users/philip/tmp

answered Nov 19, 2015 at 19:39

Philip Hallstrom

19.9k2 gold badges44 silver badges47 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

Jörg W Mittag · Accepted Answer · 2015-11-19 19:42:26Z

0

There is a method Kernel#__dir__ which returns the directory of the file the call to __dir__ is in. (It is basically equivalent to File.dirname(File.realpath(__FILE__)).)

answered Nov 19, 2015 at 19:42

Jörg W Mittag

371k79 gold badges457 silver badges666 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How to access calling folder when Ruby script is run as executable?

2 Answers 2

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related