LaTeX Directory Name – How to Display Directory Name?

currfile

I'm trying to use the \currfiledir command on my homework template, so I can change even less of my header every time I start a new document, see mwe:

\documentclass[letterpaper,12pt]{article}
\usepackage{lastpage}
\usepackage[realmainfile]{currfile}
\author{Brent DeJong}
\title{\currfiledir~\\ Homework ***}
\makeatletter
\let\runauthor\@author
\let\runtitle\@title
\makeatother
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\lhead{\runtitle}
\rhead{\runauthor\\ Page \thepage\ of \pageref{LastPage}}
\fancyfoot{}
\begin{document}
\getmainfile
\begin{flushright}  
\runauthor \\
\runtitle \\
\today \\
\end{flushright}
\end{document}

Unfortunately, the \currfiledir command returns nothing.

I'm running TeXWorks via a MiXTeX distribution on Windows 8.1, so I don't know how to implement a commandline-based solution for this on my system. I get only the file name if I use \currfilepath or \currfilename. Is this package viable on Windows? How do I take advantage of it?

Best Answer

This here works fine for me on miktex and shows the absolute path if I compile twice with pdflatex --recorder

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[abspath]{currfile}
\begin{document}
dir: \currfileabsdir
\end{document}

Related Solutions

luatex – Is it Possible to Use Lua to Obtain the Current Working Directory?

^{Peer pressure once again. :)}

IIRC, pure Lua has no built-in way to find out the current working directory without resorting to trickery. Thankfully, LuaTeX is shipped with the amazing LuaFileSystem, which is a "library developed to complement the set of functions related to file systems offered by the standard Lua distribution."

The reference section of the LFS manual indicates a way of achieving what we want:

lfs.currentdir ()

Returns a string with the current working directory or nil plus an error string.

There we go! Now let's write our .tex file based on this idea:

\documentclass{article}

\edef\workingdir{\unexpanded\expandafter{\directlua{tex.write(lfs.currentdir())}}}

\begin{document}

Hello, I'm in \workingdir

\texttt{\meaning\workingdir}

\end{document}

Thanks to egreg for providing the \edef version instead of my original \newcommand approach; that way, it should avoid problems with special characters in the path, and if put in the preamble of the main document, the value won't change when \workingdir is used in an \input file.

Here's the sample output from my machine:

Quack

There we go! :)

Update: If we don't want to "freeze" the working directory value, I believe we can rely on my first attempt using \newcommand instead of using \edef:

\newcommand{\actualworkingdir}{%
\unexpanded\expandafter{\directlua{tex.write(lfs.currentdir())}}}

That way, lfs.currentdir() is always issued on demand. Please bear in mind that the difference of both approaches is quite substantial:

Quack

Filesystem Path Display in LaTeX – How to Display Part of the Path

In the following code, once \defineKnownPrefixes has been called:

\currFileAbsPathWithoutPrefix expands in one step to the desired thing (string'ified path with one instance of the prefix removed if possible, if it is among those specified with \defineKnownPrefixes);
\stripPrefixFrom{⟨balanced text⟩} recursively expands to same thing, but using ⟨balanced text⟩ as input instead of the “contents” of \currfileabspath.

\stripPrefixFrom is restricted-expandable: it can be used inside \edef, \xdef, \write, \typeout, \message, etc.

\defineKnownPrefixes assigns the list of prefixes \l_uflow_prefixes_seq and the resulting \currFileAbsPathWithoutPrefix locally (in other words, it respects TeX's grouping rules).

As reminded below, the \currFileAbsPathWithoutPrefix setting requires the document to be compiled with the -recorder option of the TeX engine (see the documentation of currfile).

\documentclass{article}
% For correct typesetting of chars like _ in category code 12, either
% uncomment this or use an Unicode engine (e.g., LuaTeX or XeTeX):
% \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{xparse} % only useful if your LaTeX is older than 2020-10-01
\usepackage[abspath]{currfile} % use the correct option name

\ExplSyntaxOn
\seq_new:N \l_uflow_prefixes_seq

\NewDocumentCommand \defineKnownPrefixes { m }
  {
    \seq_set_from_clist:Nn \l_uflow_prefixes_seq {#1}
    \tl_set:Nx \currFileAbsPathWithoutPrefix
      { \uflow_strip_prefix_from:V \currfileabspath } % correct macro name
  }

\prg_generate_conditional_variant:Nnn \str_if_eq:nn { f } { TF }

\prg_new_conditional:Npnn \uflow_str_starts_with:nn #1#2 { T }
  {
    \str_if_eq:fnTF { \str_range:nnn {#1} { 1 } { \str_count:n {#2} } } {#2}
      { \prg_return_true: }
      { \prg_return_false: }
  }

\cs_new:Npn \__uflow_check_for_one_prefix:nn #1#2
  {
    \uflow_str_starts_with:nnT {#1} {#2}
      {
        \seq_map_break:n
          {
            \str_range:nnn {#1} { 1 + \str_count:n {#2} } { -1 }
            \use_none:nn
          }
      }
  }

\cs_new:Npn \uflow_strip_prefix_from:n #1
  {
    \seq_map_tokens:Nn \l_uflow_prefixes_seq
      { \__uflow_check_for_one_prefix:nn {#1} }
    % If none of the registered prefixes matches, leave a string'ified version
    % of #1 in the input stream (string'ified for consistency with the other
    % case, when one of the prefixes matches).
    \tl_to_str:n {#1}
  }

\cs_generate_variant:Nn \uflow_strip_prefix_from:n { V }
\cs_new_eq:NN \stripPrefixFrom \uflow_strip_prefix_from:n
\ExplSyntaxOff

\begin{document}

\defineKnownPrefixes{/foo/, /bar/baz/, /quux, {/one/with, a comma/}, /tmp/}

\noindent
\stripPrefixFrom{/foo/bar/baz/quux}\\
\stripPrefixFrom{/bar/baz/quux/mmmmh}\\
\stripPrefixFrom{/quux/z/oo/t}\\
\stripPrefixFrom{/one/with, a comma/blah/bleh}\\
\stripPrefixFrom{no match/bar/baz/quux}

\medskip\noindent
% This requires the .fls file, and therefore a compilation with the
% '-recorder' option.
\currfileabspath\\
\currFileAbsPathWithoutPrefix

\end{document}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

luatex – Is it Possible to Use Lua to Obtain the Current Working Directory?

Filesystem Path Display in LaTeX – How to Display Part of the Path

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