How to get the current directory of the cmdlet being executed

Question

This should be a simple task, but I have seen several attempts on how to get the path to the directory where the executed cmdlet is located with mixed success. For instance,

Answer 1

Yes, that should work. But if you need to see the absolute path, this is all you need:

(Get-Item .).FullName

Answer 2

The easiest method seems to be to use the following predefined variable:

 $PSScriptRoot

about_Automatic_Variables and about_Scripts both state:

In PowerShell 2.0, this variable is valid only in script modules (.psm1). Beginning in PowerShell 3.0, it is valid in all scripts.

I use it like this:

 $MyFileName = "data.txt"
 $filebase = Join-Path $PSScriptRoot $MyFileName

Answer 3

You would think that using '.\' as the path means that it's the invocation path. But not all the time. Example, if you use it inside a job ScriptBlock. In which case, it might point to %profile%\Documents.

Answer 4

To expand on @Cradle 's answer: you could also write a multi-purpose function that will get you the same result per the OP's question:

Function Get-AbsolutePath {

    [CmdletBinding()]
    Param(
        [parameter(
            Mandatory=$false,
            ValueFromPipeline=$true
        )]
        [String]$relativePath=".\"
    )

    if (Test-Path -Path $relativePath) {
        return (Get-Item -Path $relativePath).FullName -replace "\\$", ""
    } else {
        Write-Error -Message "'$relativePath' is not a valid path" -ErrorId 1 -ErrorAction Stop
    }

}

Answer 5

In Powershell 3 and above you can simply use

$PSScriptRoot