Relative paths based on file location instead of current working directory

@Martin Konecny's answer provides the correct answer, but - as he mentions - it only works if the actual script is not invoked through a symlink residing in a different directory.

This answer covers that case: a solution that also works when the script is invoked through a symlink or even a chain of symlinks:

Linux / GNU readlink solution:

If your script needs to run on Linux only or you know that GNU readlink is in the $PATH, use readlink -f, which conveniently resolves a symlink to its ultimate target:

 scriptDir=$(dirname -- "$(readlink -f -- "$BASH_SOURCE")")

Note that GNU readlink has 3 related options for resolving a symlink to its ultimate target's full path: -f (--canonicalize), -e (--canonicalize-existing), and -m (--canonicalize-missing) - see man readlink.
Since the target by definition exists in this scenario, any of the 3 options can be used; I've chosen -f here, because it is the most well-known one.

Multi-(Unix-like-)platform solution (including platforms with a POSIX-only set of utilities):

If your script must run on any platform that:

  • has a readlink utility, but lacks the -f option (in the GNU sense of resolving a symlink to its ultimate target) - e.g., macOS.

    • macOS uses an older version of the BSD implementation of readlink; note that recent versions of FreeBSD/PC-BSD do support -f.

  • does not even have readlink, but has POSIX-compatible utilities - e.g., HP-UX (thanks, @Charles Duffy).

The following solution, inspired by https://stackoverflow.com/a/1116890/45375, defines helper shell function, rreadlink(), which resolves a given symlink to its ultimate target in a loop - this function is in effect a POSIX-compliant implementation of GNU readlink's -e option, which is similar to the -f option, except that the ultimate target must exist.

Note: The function is a bash function, and is POSIX-compliant only in the sense that only POSIX utilities with POSIX-compliant options are used. For a version of this function that is itself written in POSIX-compliant shell code (for /bin/sh), see here.

  • If readlink is available, it is used (without options) - true on most modern platforms.

  • Otherwise, the output from ls -l is parsed, which is the only POSIX-compliant way to determine a symlink's target.
    Caveat: this will break if a filename or path contains the literal substring -> - which is unlikely, however.
    (Note that platforms that lack readlink may still provide other, non-POSIX methods for resolving a symlink; e.g., @Charles Duffy mentions HP-UX's find utility supporting the %l format char. with its -printf primary; in the interest of brevity the function does NOT try to detect such cases.)

  • An installable utility (script) form of the function below (with additional functionality) can be found as rreadlink in the npm registry; on Linux and macOS, install it with [sudo] npm install -g rreadlink; on other platforms (assuming they have bash), follow the manual installation instructions.

If the argument is a symlink, the ultimate target's canonical path is returned; otherwise, the argument's own canonical path is returned.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Helper function.
rreadlink() ( # execute function in a *subshell* to localize the effect of `cd`, ...

  local target=$1 fname targetDir readlinkexe=$(command -v readlink) CDPATH= 

  # Since we'll be using `command` below for a predictable execution
  # environment, we make sure that it has its original meaning.
  { \unalias command; \unset -f command; } &>/dev/null

  while :; do # Resolve potential symlinks until the ultimate target is found.
      [[ -L $target || -e $target ]] || { command printf '%s\n' "$FUNCNAME: ERROR: '$target' does not exist." >&2; return 1; }
      command cd "$(command dirname -- "$target")" # Change to target dir; necessary for correct resolution of target path.
      fname=$(command basename -- "$target") # Extract filename.
      [[ $fname == '/' ]] && fname='' # !! curiously, `basename /` returns '/'
      if [[ -L $fname ]]; then
        # Extract [next] target path, which is defined
        # relative to the symlink's own directory.
        if [[ -n $readlinkexe ]]; then # Use `readlink`.
          target=$("$readlinkexe" -- "$fname")
        else # `readlink` utility not available.
          # Parse `ls -l` output, which, unfortunately, is the only POSIX-compliant 
          # way to determine a symlink's target. Hypothetically, this can break with
          # filenames containig literal ' -> ' and embedded newlines.
          target=$(command ls -l -- "$fname")
          target=${target#* -> }
        fi
        continue # Resolve [next] symlink target.
      fi
      break # Ultimate target reached.
  done
  targetDir=$(command pwd -P) # Get canonical dir. path
  # Output the ultimate target's canonical path.
  # Note that we manually resolve paths ending in /. and /.. to make sure we
  # have a normalized path.
  if [[ $fname == '.' ]]; then
    command printf '%s\n' "${targetDir%/}"
  elif  [[ $fname == '..' ]]; then
    # Caveat: something like /var/.. will resolve to /private (assuming
    # /var@ -> /private/var), i.e. the '..' is applied AFTER canonicalization.
    command printf '%s\n' "$(command dirname -- "${targetDir}")"
  else
    command printf '%s\n' "${targetDir%/}/$fname"
  fi
)

# Determine ultimate script dir. using the helper function.
# Note that the helper function returns a canonical path.
scriptDir=$(dirname -- "$(rreadlink "$BASH_SOURCE")")

Just one line will be OK.

cat "`dirname $0`"/../some.txt

What you want to do is get the absolute path of the script (available via ${BASH_SOURCE[0]}) and then use this to get the parent directory and cd to it at the beginning of the script.

#!/bin/bash
parent_path=$( cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" ; pwd -P )

cd "$parent_path"
cat ../some.text

This will make your shell script work independent of where you invoke it from. Each time you run it, it will be as if you were running ./cat.sh inside dir.

Note that this script only works if you're invoking the script directly (i.e. not via a symlink), otherwise the finding the current location of the script gets a little more tricky)

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