Bash - running script as it was executed in its own folder

Question

I have a bash script called my-script.sh inside a folder 2 level up from the root where I want this script to be called/executed from

/folder1
    /folder2/
        - my-script.sh
        - do-it.sh

my-script.sh

#!/bin/bash
./do-it.sh

If I execute my-script.sh from the root folder it fails since it tries to find do-it.sh in the same folder.

folder1/folder2/my-script.sh: line 3: ./do-it.sh: No such file or directory

If I want to execute my-script.sh script properly I have to get into folder2 first and them execute it

cd /folder1/folder2
./my-script.sh

Is there a way to execute it from root folder as it was being executed from folder2?

Charles G · Accepted Answer · 2022-09-01 14:28:35Z

5

To make my scripts run anywhere I usually add this line to get the folder containing the script

script_folder="$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" && pwd )"
$script_folder/my-script.sh

answered Sep 1, 2022 at 14:28

Charles G

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2 Comments

Mime Over a year ago

Very neat solution. You may want to consider to cd $script_folder before executing my-script.sh, as then the context of my-script.sh is also inside folder2

VeryNiceArgumentException Over a year ago

I think you meant $script_folder/do-it.sh

VeryNiceArgumentException · Accepted Answer · 2022-09-02 07:39:25Z

1

I found a short and simple solution using dirname $0

my-script.sh

#!/bin/bash
./$(dirname $0)/do-it.sh

answered Sep 2, 2022 at 7:39

VeryNiceArgumentException

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1 Comment

Charles G Over a year ago

This is a simplified version of my answer above, it should mostly work. Be careful though : your version can break in a number of cases, see this other post stackoverflow.com/questions/59895/…

Dominique · Accepted Answer · 2022-09-02 07:38:24Z

0

The simplest way to run a script from a certain directory is simply by mentioning the directory when running the script, so in your case:

Where-ever you are, you want to run the script as present in the /folder1/folder2 folder:

sh /folder1/folder2/my-script.sh

Where-ever you are, you want to run the script as present in the root folder:

sh /my-script.sh

As far as the do-it.sh is concerned: you can create a do-it.sh in your root folder, containing the following:

#!/bin/bash
sh /folder1/folder2/do-it.sh

answered Sep 2, 2022 at 7:38

Dominique

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1 Comment

VeryNiceArgumentException Over a year ago

I don't want edit the script if files are moved to another directory

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