Jan 5, 2009

My Digital Life Editorial Team

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Show Current Working Folder or Directory Full Path in Batch Command Script

When executing a batch command script (in .cmd or .bat file extension), sometimes it’s useful to get to know the current working directory of the batch script. Knowing the current directory or working folder in batch command is useful to ensure that the script is calling command or program at correct path, or manipulation of file and folder is done at valid destination when using relative path. Another important usage is to capture and save the current directory for later use, and the script may change the path during its course.

In fact, the showing and displaying of current directory is easy with the use of pseudo-variable for cmd.exe environment variables. From Windows 2000 onwards, Microsoft Windows has added %CD% pseudo-variable that expands to the current working directory.

For example, to display current working directory, just use the following command:

Echo %CD%

To save and store the current directory where a file is located for later use after change directory (cd) to other folder to perform other operations, use the following commands:

Set CURRENTDIR=%CD%

The %CURRENTDIR% variable to store the current working directory, which can be used in later batch commands, which as changing back to this previous directory.

In Windows 9x, the %CD% pseudo-variable is not existed. To get the current directory, use the following trick:

CD | Time | Find ":\" > Temp1.Bat
Echo Set CD=%%4 %%5 %%6 %%7 %%8 %%9 > Enter.Bat
Call Temp1.Bat
Del Temp1.Bat
Del Enter.Bat

The end result is a variable %CD% been returned to the batch processing session which contains the current working directory.

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