How to get the current (working) directory in Scala?

Question

How can I get the current directory (working directory) of the executing program in Scala?

Solution 1

Use this System.getProperty("user.dir")

Edit: A list of other standard properties can be found here. https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/environment/sysprop.html

Solution 2

Use java.nio:

import java.nio.file.Paths
println(Paths.get(".").toAbsolutePath)

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Remark on scala.reflect.io.File: I don't see any reason to look into scala.reflect packages for such mundane tasks. Getting the current working directory has usually nothing to do with Scala's reflection capabilities. Here are more reasons not to use scala.reflect.io.File: link.

Solution 3

I use new java.io.File(".").getAbsolutePath, but all the other answers work too. You don't really gain anything by using Scala-specific API here over regular Java APIs

Solution 4

Use this:

import scala.reflect.io.File
File(".").toAbsolute

Solution 5

import scala.sys.process._
val cwd = "pwd".!!  //*nix OS

View more solutions

Comments

[AlainD]

If the response is correct, please accept the answer, so other can benefit from it. (A moderator)

[Jake]

This seems the "most" correct answer of the answers provided, as it's a standard java property and therefore doesn't require the developer know what "." means (although all developers probably do). The java docs provide a definition for the property here: docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/environment/…

[Pubudu Sitinamaluwa]

updated the answer with the link provided by @jake. Thanks.

[Sam Mefford]

When I tried this in Spark Scala in an EMR Notebook, I got cwd: String = "/ " which means it's not helping me see the absolute path...

[uxke]

have not managed to get the import part working. Added the lib to build.sbt and os is visible in external libraries but importing that to code is not working. How do you do it?

[Powers]

@juske - you shouldn't need to import anything. The code is in the os package, so os.pwd is the full path. You might just need to reload IntelliJ as you would whenever a dependency is added to the build.sbt file.

[uxke]

thanks for quick reply! still getting an error: not found: value os although there is sbt: com.lihaoyi:os-lib_2.13:0.78.jar under external libraries