Can I get the current console filepath from which a script was invoked from within said script?

Question

If I am in the console/terminal at the C:\temp location, and I invoke the script C:\scripts\test.ps1, how can I get the path of the current folder (C:\temp) from inside the script I just invoked?

None of the following has the required information:

• Get-Location
• $myinvocation
• $pwd
• $PSScriptRoot

Answer 1

Note:

• The next section discusses PowerShell's notion of what the current (working) directory is, which is specific to PowerShell.

  • $pwd and Get-Location typically work - but not always: see below.

• By contrast, if you want to know what the current process sees as its current directory, which notably applies to calls to .NET APIs, use [Environment]::CurrentDirectory - this is typically not what PowerShell sees as its current location.

  • The reason for this discrepancy, which is rooted in PowerShell's ability to host multiple runspaces (threads) in a single process, is explained in GitHub issue #3428

    • Therefore, robustly calling .NET APIs (in-process) currently requires passing full, native file-system paths - see this answer

    • However, calls to external programs are not affected, because PowerShell does set its notion of the current file-system directory as the working directory of the child process that is invariably created for external programs.

  • Follow-up GitHub issue #17149 ponders synchronizing PowerShell's current (file-system) location with that of the process for the foreground runspace, specifically in the future, starting with an experimental feature; the latter has not yet been implemented as of PowerShell (Core) 7.3.6

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PowerShell's current location vs. its current directory, PowerShell-specific vs. native file-system paths:

tl;dr

• $PWD (equivalent to calling Get-Location without arguments) will typically - but not necessarily - reflect PowerShell's current file-system location (working directory).

  • The fully robust solution for returning a string that expresses the working directory as file-system-native path is:

    (Get-Location -PSProvider FileSystem).ProviderPath
    

• With use of $PWD / argument-less Get-Location, additional considerations apply with respect to (a) whether the resulting object even represents a file-system location, and (b) even if so, whether its form is understood by external programs.

Read on for background information.

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Get-Location reports PowerShell's current location, which, however, isn't guaranteed to be a file-system location, given that a PowerShell provider other than the FileSystem provider could be the one underlying the current location - even though that is rare in practice.

Therefore, to robustly determine the full path of the current file-system location, use the following:

(Get-Location -PSProvider FileSystem).Path

Note that the above expresses the file-system location potentially in terms of PowerShell-only drives, namely if the path passed to Set-Location was expressed in terms of a drive created with New-PSDrive.

Therefore, to robustly determine the full path of the current file-system location as a native file-system path, use .ProviderPath instead of .Path:

# .ProviderPath only differs from .Path if the current
# file-system location is on a PowerShell-only drive
# (a non-persistent drive established with New-PSDrive)
(Get-Location -PSProvider FileSystem).ProviderPath

In the simplest case - if you're willing to assume that the current location is a file-system location - you can use the automatic $PWD variable, which is in effect a more efficient alternative to calling Get-Location without arguments.

# Same as: (Get-Location).Path
$PWD.Path  # same as: "$PWD" (stringified)

Note:

• Stringifying a System.Management.Automation.PathInfo instance - as reported by $PWD / Get-Location - results in the value of its .Path property, so situationally you may not need to access the .Path property explicitly; e.g., "The current location is: $PWD"

• As noted, the .ProviderPath (e.g. $PWD.ProviderPath) returns the native file-system path (for instances representing the paths to items of the FileSystem provider; more generally, it returns the form of the path that is native to the underlying provider).