# Ruby confused about current directory? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [May 27, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-confused-about-current-directory/189272 "2010-05-27T19:51:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/a587f6/32.png) [@kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kuma)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-confused-about-current-directory/189272/1 "2010-05-27T19:51:03Z")
Hi all, Something is wrong with my environment such that ruby occasionally gets confused about the ‘current directory’. I’m running ruby 1.8.6 (2010-02-04 patchlevel 398) [i386-mingw32] on Windows XP. The root problem, which seems to break Rake, as well as gem installs, is that under some situations it thinks the current directory is the Windows USER\_HOME, directory even when the script runs from another directory. One way to reproduce this is to create a script that prints the working directory, e.g. ‘puts Dir.pwd’. Next, run these commands in IRB from the root dir, c:\ irb(main):001:0\> Kernel.system(‘c:\ruby\bin\ruby.exe c:\temp\printdir.rb’) “Current dir: C:/” =\> true irb(main):001:0\> Kernel.system(‘call c:\ruby\bin\ruby.exe c:\temp\printdir.rb’) “Current dir: C:/Documents and Settings/hartbr” =\> true I have reinstalled ruby, with no luck. It doesn’t do this on a co-workers machine. Does anyone have any advice? Thanks, Brian ---
**Author:** ![kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/a587f6/32.png) [@kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kuma)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-confused-about-current-directory/189272/2 "2010-05-27T20:07:20Z")
On May 27, 2010, at 10:51 AM, Brian H. wrote: > “Current dir: C:/Documents and Settings/hartbr” > =\> true It looks like the difference in invocation – first system() command invokes ruby directly, while the second does it via “call”. My guess would be that “call” may reset working folder to the logged user’s home folder (or to whatever working folder is associated with the installed ruby application) before invoking ruby.exe. Gennady. ---
**Author:** ![kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/a587f6/32.png) [@kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kuma)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 8:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-confused-about-current-directory/189272/3 "2010-05-27T20:16:42Z")
On May 27, 2:51 pm, Brian H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > “Current dir: C:/Documents and Settings/hartbr” > =\> true > > I have reinstalled ruby, with no luck. It doesn’t do this on a > co-workers machine. Does anyone have any advice? Your co-workers are using XP too? What is the output of the following? set HOME set USERPROFILE Here, Windows 7: C:\>ruby -v ruby 1.8.6 (2010-02-04 patchlevel 398) [i386-mingw32] C:\>irb irb(main):001:0\> Dir.pwd =\> “C:/” irb(main):002:0\> system “ruby C:/Users/Luis/Desktop/t.rb” Current directory: C:/ =\> true irb(main):003:0\> system “call ruby C:/Users/Luis/Desktop/t.rb” Current directory: C:/ =\> true ---
**Author:** ![kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/a587f6/32.png) [@kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kuma)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 8:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-confused-about-current-directory/189272/4 "2010-05-27T20:25:34Z")
Luis L. wrote: > Your co-workers are using XP too? > > What is the output of the following? > > set HOME > set USERPROFILE Hi Luis, Thanks for replying. Yes, they are using Windows XP. My values for these are: C:\Documents and Settings\hartbr\>set HOME HOMEDRIVE=U: HOMEPATH= HOMESHARE=\icuser\HartBr$ C:\Documents and Settings\hartbr\>set USERPROFILE USERPROFILE=C:\Documents and Settings\hartbr I tried setting my HOMEDRIVE to C: and my HOMEPATH to \Documents and Settings\Hartbr, using the ‘SET’ command, and ran my scripts again in that window, but no luck. ---
**Author:** ![kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/a587f6/32.png) [@kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kuma)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 12:40am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-confused-about-current-directory/189272/5 "2010-05-28T00:40:48Z")
On May 27, 5:29 pm, Brian H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Brian H. wrote: > > > Luis L. wrote: > > > > > Your co-workers are using XP too? > > This is an environment issue, not a Ruby issue. I have narrowed it down > to the fact that cmd.exe is failing to inherit the current directory > from the spawning process. I’ll post back if I find a solution. > > Thanks. Question: are you using a custom console process? Like PowerShell/ Console or anything like that? There was an old bug in Console two that confused cmd.exe not expanding environment variables. Also, check how cmd.exe is being started (which parameters like /V:ON or /E:ON ---
**Author:** ![kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/a587f6/32.png) [@kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kuma)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 10:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-confused-about-current-directory/189272/6 "2010-05-27T22:29:05Z")
Brian H. wrote: > Luis L. wrote: > > > Your co-workers are using XP too? This is an environment issue, not a Ruby issue. I have narrowed it down to the fact that cmd.exe is failing to inherit the current directory from the spawning process. I’ll post back if I find a solution. Thanks. Brian