Altering the Current Working Directory in C

The need to adjust the current working directory is often encountered when working with files and I/O operations. C offers a platform-independent solution for this task through the use of the std::filesystem::current_path function.

C 17 Solution: std::filesystem::current_path

In C 17, the std::filesystem library provides a cross-platform API for file system operations. The std::filesystem::current_path function allows for both retrieving and setting the current working directory.

Example:

#include 

int main() {
    namespace fs = std::filesystem;

    // Retrieve the current working directory
    fs::path current_path = fs::current_path();

    // Set the current working directory
    fs::current_path(current_path / "new_directory");
}

In this example, we first retrieve the current working directory using the current_path function and store it in a fs::path object. We can then use this fs::path object to set the current working directory to a new path, in this case, the subdirectory "new_directory".

Compatibility

The std::filesystem library is available in C 17 and later. For older versions of C , platform-specific options are available, such as direct.h for Windows or unistd.h for UNIX/POSIX systems. However, these options lack the portability of std::filesystem::current_path.