CurrentPath

CurrentPath

This module provides the macro @current_path to conveniently update a path. This is useful for loading files in combination with the Literate package.

@current_path([prefix], filename)

Return the absolute path to file filename relative to the executing script.

Input

• prefix – path prefix (optional; ignored by default)
• filename – filename

Output

The string corresponding to the absolute path of the file.

Notes

This macro is equivalent to joinpath(@__DIR__, filename). It is useful in scripts to load data files relative to the location of the script without having to change the directory of the Julia session. For instance, suppose that the folder /home/models/my_model contains the script my_model.jl, and suppose that the data file my_data.dat located in the same directory is required to be loaded by my_model.jl. Suppose further that the working directory is /home/julia/ and we ran the script as julia -e "include("../models/my_model/my_model.jl")". In the model file /home/models/my_model/my_model.jl we write:

d = open(@current_path("my_model", "my_data.dat"))
# do something with d

In this example, the macro @current_path("my_model", "my_data.dat") evaluates to the string /home/models/my_model/my_data.dat. If the script my_model.jl only had d = open("my_data.dat"), without @current_path, this command would fail, as Julia would have looked for my_data.dat in the working directory, resulting in an error that the file /home/julia/my_data.dat is not found.

The real convenience enters when including the script my_model in combination with the Literate package. In this case, we need to prepend the folder my_model for prefix; hence we redefine the definition to:

macro current_path(prefix::String, filename::String)
    return joinpath("home", "models", prefix, filename)
end