How can I set the current working directory to the directory of the script in Bash?

#!/bin/bash
cd "$(dirname "$0")"

The following also works:

cd "${0%/*}"

The syntax is thoroughly described in this StackOverflow answer.

Try the following simple one-liners:

---

For all UNIX/OSX/Linux

dir=$(cd -P -- "$(dirname -- "$0")" && pwd -P)

Bash

dir=$(cd -P -- "$(dirname -- "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" && pwd -P)

^{Note: A double dash (--) is used in commands to signify the end of command options, so files containing dashes or other special characters won't break the command.}

^{Note: In Bash, use ${BASH_SOURCE[0]} in favor of $0, otherwise the path can break when sourcing it (source/.).}

---

For Linux, Mac and other *BSD:

cd "$(dirname "$(realpath "$0")")";

^{Note: realpath should be installed in the most popular Linux distribution by default (like Ubuntu), but in some it can be missing, so you have to install it.}

^{Note: If you're using Bash, use ${BASH_SOURCE[0]} in favor of $0, otherwise the path can break when sourcing it (source/.).}

Otherwise you could try something like that (it will use the first existing tool):

cd "$(dirname "$(readlink -f "$0" || realpath "$0")")"

---

For Linux specific:

cd "$(dirname "$(readlink -f "$0")")"

---

Using GNU readlink on *BSD/Mac:

cd "$(dirname "$(greadlink -f "$0")")"

Note: You need to have coreutils installed (e.g. 1. Install Homebrew, 2. brew install coreutils).

---

In bash

In bash you can use Parameter Expansions to achieve that, like:

cd "${0%/*}"

but it doesn't work if the script is run from the same directory.

Alternatively you can define the following function in bash:

realpath () {
  [[ $1 = /* ]] && echo "$1" || echo "$PWD/${1#./}"
}

^{This function takes 1 argument. If argument has already absolute path, print it as it is, otherwise print $PWD variable + filename argument (without ./ prefix).}

or here is the version taken from Debian .bashrc file:

function realpath()
{
    f=$@
    if [ -d "$f" ]; then
        base=""
        dir="$f"
    else
        base="/$(basename "$f")"
        dir=$(dirname "$f")
    fi
    dir=$(cd "$dir" && /bin/pwd)
    echo "$dir$base"
}

---

Related:

• How to detect the current directory in which I run my shell script?

• Get the source directory of a Bash script from within the script itself

• Bash script absolute path with OS X

• Reliable way for a Bash script to get the full path to itself

See also:

How can I get the behavior of GNU's readlink -f on a Mac?