In the terminal, we get present working directory using pwd command. In this tutorial, we will see how to get present working directory in java program.

Present working directory in Java:

There are several ways to find the present working directory in java, see one by one.

1. System.getProperty(“user.dir”):

One of the easiest ways is reading from System properties using user.dir value. It reads the present working directory from where the current file is being used.

public class PresentWorkingDirectory {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String pwd = System.getProperty("user.dir");

        System.out.println(pwd);
    }
}

Output:

/Users/chandra/Work/MyWork/java_samples

2. Java nio Paths:

Java nio provides Paths class, it provides necessary utility methods.

import java.nio.file.Paths;

public class PresentWorkingDirectory {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        getPresentWorkingDirectory();
    }
    
    private static void getPresentWorkingDirectory() {
        String pwd = Paths.get("")
                .toAbsolutePath()
                .toString();
        System.out.println(pwd);
    }
}

Output:

/Users/chandra/Work/MyWork/java_samples

3. Java nio FileSystem:

Java nio provides FileSystem class, it provides an interface to a file system and is the factory for objects to access files and other objects in the file system.

import java.nio.file.FileSystems;

public class PresentWorkingDirectory {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        getPresentWorkingDirectory2();
    }

    private static void getPresentWorkingDirectory2() {
        String pwd = FileSystems.getDefault()
                .getPath("")
                .toAbsolutePath()
                .toString();
        System.out.println(pwd);
    }
}

Output:

/Users/chandra/Work/MyWork/java_samples

4. Java io File:

This is the legacy way of getting the current working directory.

import java.io.File;

public class PresentWorkingDirectory {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        getPresentWorkingDirectory3();
    }

    private static void getPresentWorkingDirectory3() {
        String pwd = new File("")
                      .getAbsolutePath();
        System.out.println(pwd);
    }
}

Output:

/Users/chandra/Work/MyWork/java_samples

References:

• Java nio

Happy Learning 🙂