How Can I Reliably Determine the Path of My C/C Executable?

Determining the Executable Location in C

In C/C , retrieving the full path of the currently executing program can be achieved using various approaches. One common concern is that the argv[0] argument provided in the main function doesn't always provide the complete path. To address this issue, we explore several solutions:

Unix-Based Systems with /proc

In Unix systems with /proc support, the most straightforward and reliable method is to:

• Linux: readlink("/proc/self/exe", buf, bufsize)
• FreeBSD: readlink("/proc/curproc/file", buf, bufsize)
• Solaris: readlink("/proc/self/path/a.out", buf, bufsize)

Unix-Based Systems Without /proc

For systems without /proc, several fallbacks can be employed:

• If argv[0] begins with "/", it represents an absolute path.
• If argv[0] contains "/", append it to the current working directory (assuming it hasn't been modified).
• Search directories in $PATH for the argv[0] executable.

Additionally, it's recommended to verify if the executable is a symlink and resolve it relative to its directory (except for the /proc method on Linux).

Windows Systems

On Windows, the preferred method is:

• GetModuleFileName(NULL, buf, bufsize)

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