find path of current folder – cmd

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2015-03-30: Edited – Missing information has been added

To retrieve the current directory you can use the dynamic %cd% variable that holds the current active directory

set "curpath=%cd%"

This generates a value with a ending backslash for the root directory, and without a backslash for the rest of directories. You can force and ending backslash for any directory with

for %%a in ("%cd%\") do set "curpath=%%~fa"

Or you can use another dynamic variable: %__CD__% that will return the current active directory with an ending backslash.

Also, remember the %cd% variable can have a value directly assigned. In this case, the value returned will not be the current directory, but the assigned value. You can prevent this with a reference to the current directory

for %%a in (".\") do set "curpath=%%~fa"

Up to windows XP, the %__CD__% variable has the same behaviour. It can be overwritten by the user, but at least from windows 7 (i can’t test it on Vista), any change to the %__CD__% is allowed but when the variable is read, the changed value is ignored and the correct current active directory is retrieved (note: the changed value is still visible using the set command).

BUT all the previous codes will return the current active directory, not the directory where the batch file is stored. 

set "curpath=%~dp0"

It will return the directory where the batch file is stored, with an ending backslash.

BUT this will fail if in the batch file the shift command has been used

shift
echo %~dp0

As the arguments to the batch file has been shifted, the %0 reference to the current batch file is lost.

To prevent this, you can retrieve the reference to the batch file before any shifting, or change the syntax to shift /1 to ensure the shift operation will start at the first argument, not affecting the reference to the batch file. If you can not use any of this options, you can retrieve the reference to the current batch file in a call to a subroutine

@echo off
    setlocal enableextensions

    rem Destroy batch file reference
    shift
    echo batch folder is "%~dp0"

    rem Call the subroutine to get the batch folder 
    call :getBatchFolder batchFolder
    echo batch folder is "%batchFolder%"

    exit /b

:getBatchFolder returnVar
    set "%~1=%~dp0" & exit /b

This approach can also be necessary if when invoked the batch file name is quoted and a full reference is not used (read here).

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