Windows shell command to get the full path to the current directory?

Question

Is there a Windows command line command that I can use to get the full path to the current working directory?

Also, how can I store this path inside a variable used in a batch file?

Solution 1

Use cd with no arguments if you're using the shell directly, or %cd% if you want to use it in a batch file (it behaves like an environment variable).

Solution 2

You can set a batch/environment variable as follows:

SET var=%cd%
ECHO %var%

sample screenshot from a Windows 7 x64 cmd.exe.

Update: if you do a SET var = %cd% instead of SET var=%cd% , below is what happens. Thanks to jeb.

Capturing the current directory from a batch file

Solution 3

Quote the Windows help for the set command (set /?):

If Command Extensions are enabled, then there are several dynamic
environment variables that can be expanded but which don't show up in
the list of variables displayed by SET.  These variable values are
computed dynamically each time the value of the variable is expanded.
If the user explicitly defines a variable with one of these names, then
that definition will override the dynamic one described below:

%CD% - expands to the current directory string.

%DATE% - expands to current date using same format as DATE command.

%TIME% - expands to current time using same format as TIME command.

%RANDOM% - expands to a random decimal number between 0 and 32767.

%ERRORLEVEL% - expands to the current ERRORLEVEL value

%CMDEXTVERSION% - expands to the current Command Processor Extensions
    version number.

%CMDCMDLINE% - expands to the original command line that invoked the
    Command Processor.

Note the %CD% - expands to the current directory string. part.

Solution 4

On Unix?

pwd

Solution 5

This has always worked for me:

SET CurrentDir="%~dp0"

ECHO The current file path this bat file is executing in is the following:

ECHO %CurrentDir%

Pause

View more solutions

Comments

[Admin]

find /dir/to/start/from -type f -ls This format the date to numeric find /dir/to/start/from -type f -exec ls -l --time-style="+ %Y %m %e %H:%M" {} \;

[Vishrant]

have a look at this answer stackoverflow.com/a/52301748/2704032

[darjab]

How did you understand what he was trying to say from that ? And, under dos and windows cmd, its usually just "cd"

[Trevor Bramble]

Honestly, I couldn't think of anything else they might be trying to ask as the question stated.

[darjab]

I can't however understand why he needs "cd" to see his current dir. By default, it is visible as day. And if he's changed it, than he certainly knows what "cd" does.

[user62958]

Can I store this path inside a variable in a .bat file?

[darjab]

@unknown - you might be better off by describing the original problem in the first place.

[René Nyffenegger]

According to the question, this answer should actually be the accepted one.

[jeb]

But it doesn't work, as SET var = %cd% put the value in the variable var<space> not into var. You should avoid spaces in the SET command

[Harry Johnston]

That does the wrong thing - finds the path of the batch script, not the current directory.

[Stephan]

very old, but just for completeness: yes, windows does have a varible for this. It's named (guess...) %cd%

[Shridutt Kothari]

According to the question, this answer should actually be the accepted one.

[jeb]

There are already 10 answers with the same solution, but more explanations

[Tisch]

OP originally asked for a "command" and didn't specify OS. OS has now been specified so this answer is no longer relevant.

[A-Diddy]

Upvoted due to answering the OP's question... and giving me the exact solution I was looking for. Thanks!

[Tam Le]

Nice catch. Current directory could refer to the command that call the file instead of the file's location itself.

[Garric]

His answer is better by definition because your answer is wrong. It does not work for paths with spaces.

[René Nyffenegger]

Adding tokens=* fixes that.

[Дмитро Олександрович]

You can just "cd | clip" to copy current path to the clipboard