I'm porting a Linux C++03 application to Darwin OS X and have some code that reads the symbolic link at /proc/self/exe to determine the directory in which the executable running is located.
How can I compute the directory of the current executable running on Macintosh Darwin OS X Mavericks in C++?
Here is my existing code that works on Linux:
bool
resolveBinaryLocation(string &binaryDirname)
{
// Read the symbolic link '/proc/self/exe'.
const char *linkName = "/proc/self/exe";
const size_t bufSize = PATH_MAX + 1;
char dirNameBuffer[bufSize];
const int ret = int(readlink(linkName, dirNameBuffer, bufSize - 1));
if (ret == -1) {
// Permission denied (We must be inetd with this app run as other than root).
return false;
}
dirNameBuffer[ret] = 0; // Terminate the string with a NULL character.
binaryDirname = dirNameBuffer;
// Erase the name of the executable:
string::size_type last = binaryDirname.size() - 1;
string::size_type idx = binaryDirname.rfind(DSI_PATH_CHAR, last);
// Add one to keep the trailing directory separator.
binaryDirname.erase(idx + 1);
return true;
}
Here is what I settled upon as a solution:
bool
resolveBinaryLocation(string &binaryDirname)
{
const size_t bufSize = PATH_MAX + 1;
char dirNameBuffer[bufSize];
#ifdef __APPLE__
uint32_t size = bufSize;
if (_NSGetExecutablePath(dirNameBuffer, &size) != 0) {
// Buffer size is too small.
return false;
}
#else // not __APPLE__
// Read the symbolic link '/proc/self/exe'.
const char *linkName = "/proc/self/exe";
const int ret = int(readlink(linkName, dirNameBuffer, bufSize - 1));
if (ret == -1) {
// Permission denied (We must be inetd with this app run as other than root).
return false;
}
dirNameBuffer[ret] = 0; // Terminate the string with a NULL character.
#endif // else not __APPLE__
binaryDirname = dirNameBuffer;
// Erase the name of the executable:
string::size_type last = binaryDirname.size() - 1;
string::size_type idx = binaryDirname.rfind(DSI_PATH_CHAR, last);
// Add one to keep the trailing directory separator.
binaryDirname.erase(idx + 1);
return true;
}