Loading texture won't work when providing relative path

Question

I am running OS X 10.10.5. When I try to run (from the terminal) an OpenGL code that loads some textures, I get this error: "Cannot open file chair.bmp" The error gets issued after executing this line

chairTexture = LoadTexBMP("chair.bmp"); 

providing a full path solves the problem but I need to make it work with a relative path.

The example code comes with a makefile:

    # Example 9
    EXE=ex9

    # Main target
    all: $(EXE)

    #  MinGW
    ifeq "$(OS)" "Windows_NT"
    CFLG=-O3 -Wall
    LIBS=-lglut32cu -lglu32 -lopengl32
    CLEAN=del *.exe *.o *.a
    else
    #  OSX
    ifeq "$(shell uname)" "Darwin"
    CFLG=-O3 -Wall -Wno-deprecated-declarations
    LIBS=-framework GLUT -framework OpenGL
    #  Linux/Unix/Solaris
    else
    CFLG=-O3 -Wall
    LIBS=-lglut -lGLU -lGL -lm
    endif
    #  OSX/Linux/Unix/Solaris
    CLEAN=rm -f $(EXE) *.o *.a
    endif

    # Compile rules
    .c.o:
        gcc -c $(CFLG) $<
    .cpp.o:
        g++ -c $(CFLG) $<

    #  Link
    ex9:ex9.o
        gcc -O3 -o $@ $^   $(LIBS)

    #  Clean
    clean:
        $(CLEAN)

running pwd in the terminal yields /Users/nina/CG/ex9

All texture images are in ex9 folder along with ex9.c and makefile. I tried to find a solution but all the solutions I found talks about changing the working directory in Xcode which I am not using.

Answer 1

I finally figured what I was doing wrong. I was using open ex9 in the terminal which behaves as if I was clicking on the executable which in turns changes the working directory into the home directory. So, in order not to change the working directory I should use ./ex9