Why does FGenericPlatformProcess::GetCurrentWorkingDirectory( ) always return an empty string?

Development Programming & Scripting
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1

Hi all…
I have a C++ class where I need to try and determine the location of the currently running app. I need to build a path off this. But for some reason, this always returns and empty string.

I’ve tried calling both as a static class

FString path = FGenericPlatformProcess::GetCurrentWorkingDirectory( );

And creating an instance

FGenericPlatformProcess proc;
FString path = proc.GetCurrentWorkingDirectory( );

Both of which just return an empty string… Is there a different function that I should be using to try and get the currently running UE app location?

Thanks

2

Hi there, you should use the FPaths class, which provides various useful methods for dealing with paths. Specifically, you can use FPaths::ProjectDir() to get the directory of the project or FPaths::ProjectContentDir() to get the content directory of the project.

Getting the Project Directory

#include "Misc/Paths.h"

FString ProjectDirectory = FPaths::ProjectDir();
UE_LOG(LogTemp, Log, TEXT("Project Directory: %s"), *ProjectDirectory);

Getting the Content Directory

#include "Misc/Paths.h"

FString ContentDirectory = FPaths::ProjectContentDir();
UE_LOG(LogTemp, Log, TEXT("Content Directory: %s"), *ContentDirectory);

Hope this helps.

1 Like
3

Hi Spud…

Thank you for your help… Oddly, I’m actually using FPaths in my project already, not sure why I didn’t think about trying to see if it would support my needs.

Guess I couldn’t see the forest through the trees. :smiley:

1 Like
4

No problem at all mate, glad I could guide you through the fog :sweat_smile:

5

Actually… not sure if this is going to work either… It works fine when you play in the PIE, but when I try running a package build, it’s almost as if the path got baked into the exe because the path seems to be completely wrong.

Even if I have a project build deploy with this type of folder structure.

c:\MyGame\MyGame.exe

When I do a print string on Paths::ProjectDir() I see something like this.

../../../MyGame

Which looks like it’s somehow trying to pick up the original path… SO… I searched through all the functions on this class and found

LaunchDir()

That did exactly what I needed it to do…
Basically I am home rolling my own Config file… I need to know where to go find it… For now, I just wanted it to sit in the exact same location as the game.exe…