Get folder path relative to the compiled exe

[Sukhoverkhaya]

Hello!

I'm trying to get my compiled app to use some files from a folder that I put next to the exe file after compilation. So I use something like const MY_PATH = @path joinpath(pwd(), "settings/my_file.txt") where settings is the folder next to the exe. But this doesn't work and on other machines it creates a path to folder with artifacts and dlls.

Can I use this macro to get the folder path relative to the compiled exe?

[MichaelHatherly]

Could you provide some more context here? Is this a PackageCompiler.jl "compiled app"? Can you provide a minimal working example (MWE) that shows what you've tried. My initial thought is that pwd() calls inside of @path aren't meant to work, but perhaps there's a different way to do what you're trying to achieve, but we'll need the above questions answered to be able to do that.

[Sukhoverkhaya]

MWE is here https://github.com/Sukhoverkhaya/exe_paths_mwe.jl, compilation script is here https://github.com/Sukhoverkhaya/exe_paths_mwe.jl/blob/main/deploy/compile_app.sh

There I do joinpath(pwd(), "settings/config.txt") two times: at const MY_PATH initialization and at runtime https://github.com/Sukhoverkhaya/exe_paths_mwe.jl/blob/main/src/exe_paths_mwe.jl. The result on another machine (not mine) is in the screenshot. So when I do joinpath(pwd(), "settings/config.txt") it works correctly, but const MY_PATH has a strange value...

I get a similar result on my machine, but MY_PATH points to the repository directory where the application was compiled.

As a temporary solution, I can create paths relative to the exe at runtime, or make Ref constants and initialize them during modules initialization, but I'm looking for a more elegant solution.

[MichaelHatherly]

Thanks for putting that together. What purpose does settings/config.txt serve? Is it settings that an end user would make changes to? If so then it's a runtime path and this package won't be of any use for that, just doing the relative path to the exe at runtime is the right approach as far as I can tell.

[Sukhoverkhaya]

What purpose does settings/config.txt serve? Is it settings that an end user would make changes to?

Yes, it is.

If so then it's a runtime path and this package won't be of any use for that, just doing the relative path to the exe at runtime is the right approach as far as I can tell.

Got it, thank you for the explanation!

[MichaelHatherly]

I'll closed this then since it's not actionable for this package.