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c++headerportabilityworking-directory

Change the current working directory in C++

How can I change my current working directory in C++ in a platform-agnostic way?

I found the direct.h header file, which is Windows compatible, and the unistd.h, which is UNIX/POSIX compatible.

Solution

  • The chdir function works on both POSIX (manpage) and Windows (called _chdir there but an alias chdir exists).

    Both implementations return zero on success and -1 on error. As you can see in the manpage, more distinguished errno values are possible in the POSIX variant, but that shouldn't really make a difference for most use cases.