Set CWD to Source Directory, as opposed to Build Directory

Question

In C, when using the FILE struct from stdio.h, the current working directory will be relative to the build directory if the programmer attempts to open a file.

Is there a setting of some sort (maybe a compiler flag) which I can use to allow the CWD to be set to the source directory at compile or run time? Preferably a method that is cross-platform from Windows to *nix, but if that's not doable let's just say *nix.

I'm working in Linux currently, with GCC/G++, using qmake without the Qt libraries.

Also, the main reason I'm using the C FILE IO method as opposed to C++'s std::ifstream is just personal preference, in case anyone asks.

Answer 1

In your .pro file you can define the source directory as a macro, then chdir() to it in your source code.

# myproject.pro
DEFINES+=SRCDIR=\\\"$$PWD\\\"

# myapp.cpp
int main(int argc, char** argv) {
    if (chdir(SRCDIR)) {
        perror("chdir to " SRCDIR);
    }
    // ... rest of code
}

Getting it to work on Windows might involve fiddling with the number of backslashes in the .pro file.