Thread: Have an executable find its own name

Well, one easy way to know what's your program name (and path) is to use the argument from the main function, ie

Code:

#include <iostream>
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
   std::cout << argv[0] << std::endl;
   return 0;
}

Depending on how you lauch the application, the full path of the executable might appear, but this is not a big of a problem.

You can't use a preprocessor to obtain runtime information.

You're reliant on implementation defined behaviour, generally, or some function call specific to the operating system.

Arguments to the main() function provide the only means specified in the standard.

Code:

#include <iostream>

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
     std::cout << argv[0] << '\n';
}

There are a few caveats on this ...... The string printed out by this is formally implementation defined but, in practice, often contains the name of the executable (with or without fully qualified path information). It can also contain an empty string ("") if the implementation can't supply the name. On some systems, argv[0] yields some token that refers to the executable (eg an alias or symbol that needs to be translated to obtain the name). If you need path information (i.e. the directory the executable is in) and argv[0] does not contain that, it is often necessary to search through various defined locations (eg PATH environment variable under unix and windows, the current working directory, etc).

Some modern operating systems provide a function call to obtain the executable name. You will need to read your system documentation to find those.