Get the path of current script

Question

I would like to set the working directory to the path of current script programmatically but first I need to get the path of current script.

So I would like to be able to do:

current_path = ...retrieve the path of current script ...
setwd(current_path) 

Just like the RStudio menu does:

So far I tried:

initial.options <- commandArgs(trailingOnly = FALSE)
file.arg.name <- "--file="
script.name <- sub(file.arg.name, "", initial.options[grep(file.arg.name, initial.options)])
script.basename <- dirname(script.name)

script.name returns NULL

source("script.R", chdir = TRUE)

Returns: Error in file(filename, "r", encoding = encoding) : cannot open the connection In addition: Warning message: In file(filename, "r", encoding = encoding) : cannot open file '/script.R': No such file or directory

dirname(parent.frame(2)$ofile)

Returns: Error in dirname(parent.frame(2)$ofile) : a character vector argument expected ...because parent.frame is null

frame_files <- lapply(sys.frames(), function(x) x$ofile)
frame_files <- Filter(Negate(is.null), frame_files)
PATH <- dirname(frame_files[[length(frame_files)]])

Returns: Null because frame_files is a list of 0

thisFile <- function() {
    cmdArgs <- commandArgs(trailingOnly = FALSE)
    needle <- "--file="
    match <- grep(needle, cmdArgs)
    if (length(match) > 0) {
        # Rscript
        return(normalizePath(sub(needle, "", cmdArgs[match])))
    } else {
        # 'source'd via R console
        return(normalizePath(sys.frames()[[1]]$ofile))
    }
}

Returns: Error in path.expand(path) : invalid 'path' argument

Also I saw all answers from here, here, here and here. No joy.

Working with RStudio 1.1.383

EDIT: It would be great if there was no need for an external library to achieve this.

Answer 1

In RStudio, you can get the path to the file currently shown in the source pane using

rstudioapi::getSourceEditorContext()$path

If you only want the directory, use

dirname(rstudioapi::getSourceEditorContext()$path)

If you want the name of the file that's been run by source(filename), that's a little harder. You need to look for the variable srcfile somewhere back in the stack. How far back depends on how you write things, but it's around 4 steps back: for example,

fi <- tempfile()
writeLines("f()", fi)
f <- function() print(sys.frame(-4)$srcfile)
source(fi)
fi

should print the same thing on the last two lines.

Answer 2

Update August 2018

TLDR: The here package helps you build a path from the project's root folder no matter where in the folder hiearchy the R scripts or Rmd documents are stored.

The here package remains available on CRAN. The development version has been moved to github.com/r-lib/here. The points mentioned in the sites quoted below remain valid.

Previous answer

Read the Ode to the here package:

Do you: Have setwd() in your scripts? PLEASE STOP DOING THAT. This makes your script very fragile, hard-wired to exactly one time and place. As soon as you rename or move directories, it breaks. Or maybe you get a new computer? Or maybe someone else needs to run your code?

[...]

Classic problem presentation: Awkwardness around building paths and/or setting working directory in projects with subdirectories. Especially if you use R Markdown and knitr, which trips up alot of people with its default behavior of “working directory = directory where this file lives”. [...]

Install the here package:

install.packages("here")
library(here)
here()
here("construct","a","path")

Documentation of the here() function:

Starting with the current working directory during package load time, here will walk the directory hierarchy upwards until it finds a directory that satisfies at least one of the following conditions:

• contains a file matching [.]Rproj$ with contents matching ^Version: in the first line
• [... other options ...]
• contains a directory .git

Once established, the root directory doesn't change during the active R session. here() then appends the arguments to the root directory.

The development version of the here package is available on github.

Answer 3

Update March 2019

Based on Alexis Lucattini and user2554330 answers, to make it work on both command line and RStudio. Also solving the "as_tibble" deprecated message

library(tidyverse)
getCurrentFileLocation <-  function()
{
    this_file <- commandArgs() %>% 
    tibble::enframe(name = NULL) %>%
    tidyr::separate(col=value, into=c("key", "value"), sep="=", fill='right') %>%
    dplyr::filter(key == "--file") %>%
    dplyr::pull(value)
    if (length(this_file)==0)
    {
      this_file <- rstudioapi::getSourceEditorContext()$path
    }
    return(dirname(this_file))
}

Answer 4

If you're running an Rscript through the command-line etc

Rscript /path/to/script.R

The function below will assign this_file to /path/to/script

library(tidyverse)
get_this_file <- function(){
    commandArgs() %>% 
       tibble::enframe(name=NULL) %>%
       tidyr::separate(col=value, into=c("key", "value"), sep="=", fill='right') %>%
       dplyr::filter(key == "--file") %>%
       dplyr::pull(value)
}
this_file <- get_this_file()

Answer 5

Here is a custom function to obtain the path of a file in R, RStudio, or from an Rscript:

stub <- function() {}
thisPath <- function() {
  cmdArgs <- commandArgs(trailingOnly = FALSE)
  if (length(grep("^-f$", cmdArgs)) > 0) {
    # R console option
    normalizePath(dirname(cmdArgs[grep("^-f", cmdArgs) + 1]))[1]
  } else if (length(grep("^--file=", cmdArgs)) > 0) {
    # Rscript/R console option
    scriptPath <- normalizePath(dirname(sub("^--file=", "", cmdArgs[grep("^--file=", cmdArgs)])))[1]
  } else if (Sys.getenv("RSTUDIO") == "1") {
    # RStudio
    dirname(rstudioapi::getSourceEditorContext()$path)
  } else if (is.null(attr(stub, "srcref")) == FALSE) {
    # 'source'd via R console
    dirname(normalizePath(attr(attr(stub, "srcref"), "srcfile")$filename))
  } else {
    stop("Cannot find file path")
  }
}

https://gist.github.com/jasonsychau/ff6bc78a33bf3fd1c6bd4fa78bbf42e7

Answer 6

Another option to get current script path is funr::get_script_path() and you don't need run your script using RStudio.

Answer 7

I had trouble with all of these because they rely on libraries that I couldn't use (because of packrat) until after setting the working directory (which was why I needed to get the path to begin with).

So, here's an approach that just uses base R. (EDITED to handle windows \ characters in addition to / in paths)

args = commandArgs()

scriptName = args[substr(args,1,7) == '--file=']

if (length(scriptName) == 0) {
  scriptName <- rstudioapi::getSourceEditorContext()$path
} else {
  scriptName <- substr(scriptName, 8, nchar(scriptName))
}

pathName = substr(
  scriptName, 
  1, 
  nchar(scriptName) - nchar(strsplit(scriptName, '.*[/|\\]')[[1]][2])
)

Answer 8

The following solves the problem for three cases: RStudio source Button, RStudio R console (source(...), if the file is still in the Source pane) or the OS console via Rscript:

this_file = gsub("--file=", "", commandArgs()[grepl("--file", commandArgs())])
if (length(this_file) > 0){
  wd <- paste(head(strsplit(this_file, '[/|\\]')[[1]], -1), collapse = .Platform$file.sep)
}else{
  wd <- dirname(rstudioapi::getSourceEditorContext()$path)
}

print(wd)

Answer 9

The following code gives the directory of the running Rscript if you are running it either from Rstudio or from the command line using Rscript command:

if (rstudioapi::isAvailable()) {
  if (require('rstudioapi') != TRUE) {
    install.packages('rstudioapi')
  }else{
    library(rstudioapi) # load it
  }
 wdir <- dirname(getActiveDocumentContext()$path)
}else{
 wdir <- getwd()
}

setwd(wdir)

Answer 10

If you don't want to use (or have to remember) code, simply hover over the script and the path will appear