How to make an executable work on different machines (make a dynamic path)?

General Usage
,
1

I have created a project folder TESTEXE and built an executable as below:
2

module testexe

Base.@ccallable function julia_main()::Cint
    try
        testApp()
    catch
        Base.invokelatest(Base.display_error, Base.catch_stack())
        return 1
    end
    return 0
  end

  function testApp()
    filehandle = open("$(@__DIR__)/input.txt", "w")
    write(filehandle, "Hello world!")
    close(filehandle)
  end 
end # module

1- When I click on the executable it creates a txt file input.txt in the folder of the source file ./src/input.txt . Can the txt file be generated in the same folder of executable? so then I only need the generated folder to use it in another machine.
2- The project folder is located in the directory C:\ . When I moved it to desktop C:\Users\amroa\OneDrive\Desktop\testexe , running the executable don’t generate the txt file in the folder of the source file. What should I do to handle this issue to make the executable works on different folders and machines?

1 Like
2

Only trying to answer your first question. I tested your MWE with the following instrumentation:

function testApp()
    println("$(@__DIR__)/input.txt")
    filehandle = open("$(@__DIR__)/input.txt", "w")
    write(filehandle, "Hello world!")
    close(filehandle)
end

and it seems @__DIR__ references the source directory of your application. If you change the open call to

filehandle = open("input.txt", "w")

the file will be created in your current working directory. I then tried to get the command line parameters via ARGS with

Base.@ccallable function julia_main()::Cint
    println("$ARGS")
    try
        testApp()
    catch
        Base.invokelatest(Base.display_error, Base.catch_stack())
        return 1
    end
    return 0
end

yielding

String[]

So it seems to me your best bet is to use file system functions, especially cd to dynamically manipulate your working directory.

P.S.: working with ‘PackageCompiler’ is rather time consuming. Building this simple example lasts between 2 minutes (incremental) to 5 minutes (full) on my machine…

1 Like
4

pwd

1 Like
5

cd is C(hange)D(irectory).
pwd is P(rint)W(orking)D(irectory).

You probably need something like println(pwd()) to show the current directory in the console and directoryAtRuntime = pwd() in your code snippet.

1 Like
7

Do you run your executable from Windows explorer? I’d recommend to use Windows command prompt, because then you’ll be able to inspect the stdout and stderr output of your program

9

Sorry, didn’t see it the first time around: Julia uses case sensitive variable names. directoryAtRuntime differs from directoryAtRunTime.

10

Oops, I am sorry to make this typo. I checked it works fine.
Thank you very much…