PHP Directory getcwd() Function

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The PHP Directory getcwd() function is used to retrieve the current working directory. This directory is the location where the script is currently running. The main purpose of this function is to tell you where your script is located in the file system. It does not take any parameter. The function returns the current directory path.

Important Note

If the reading mode or search mode of any parent directory is not set, the getcwd() method fails and returns FALSE in several Unix operating systems.

Syntax

Below is the syntax of the PHP Directory getcwd() function −

string getcwd ( void );

Parameters

Here are the required and optional parameters of the getcwd() function −

Return Value

It returns the current working directory on success, or FALSE on failure.

PHP Version

The getcwd() function was introduced in core PHP 4 and is compatible with PHP 5, PHP 7, and PHP 8.

Example

In this example code, we will use the PHP Directory getcwd() function to get the current working directory path. So it will simply print the current working directory followed by a newline character.

<?php
   echo getcwd() . "\n";
   
   getcwd('html');
   
   echo getcwd() . "\n";
?> 

Output

This will produce the following result −

/home/tutorialspoint
/home/tutorialspoint/html

Example

In the below PHP code, we will use getcwd() along with the DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR a predefined constant of PHP to create an absolute path of a file. The DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR constant contains the directory separator of the current platform.

It will create the full path to a file called myfile.txt that exists within the current working directory.

<?php
   $directory = getcwd();

   $file_path = $directory . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . 'myfile.txt';

   echo "Full path to file: " . $file_path;
?> 

Output

This will create the below outcome −

Full path to file: /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/mac/myfile.txt

Example

So now we will create code for changing the present working directory and add new working directory and using the getcwd() function to get the new working directory.

It prints "New working directory: " followed by the path of the new working directory stored in $directory.

<?php
   chdir('/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/mac/new dir');

   $directory = getcwd();
   
   echo "New current directory: " . $directory;
?> 

Output

This will lead to the following outcome −

New current directory: /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/mac/new dir

Example

Now we will see how we can handle the error if the current working directory is not fetched using the getcwd() function. We will use if-else statement to handle the error. So check if $dir is present or not. If it is not present then print the message "Error, Unable to get the current dir."

<?php
   $dir = getcwd();
   if ($dir === false) {
      echo "Error, Unable to get the current dir.";
   } else {
      echo "Current directory: " . $dir;
   }
?> 

Output

The result of this PHP code is −

Current directory: /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/mac

Summary

So this is how getcwd() function works in PHP. And based on the output of the getcwd() function, you can carry out other file and directory-related operations, like listing directory entries and generating file paths.