Re: [Gnuplot-info] system independent access to home folder and script folder?

Thanks for helping to look for a workaround, but I do not think so.

Too many different computers and people involved.

Let me ask this differently.
According to the manual (p.64), "The program then looks in the user’s HOME
directory".
So after launching, Gnuplot has already determined the location of the home
directory.
Is there any way to ask Gnuplot for its value (as a string)?
If not, is there any reason for developers to avoid adding such a feature?

Thanks, Alan

On Thu, Feb 26, 2026 at 10:51 AM Peter Rockett <p.r...@sh...>
wrote:

> OK. Is the GNUPLOT_LIB environment variable what you need? Or the
> .gnuplot & GNUPLOT.INI startup files?
>
> P.
>
> On 26/02/2026 14:12, Alan wrote:
> > I would like to have data stored both
> > relative to the script file and more importantly relative to the home
> > directory,
> > and I would like an easy way to find the data on multiple systems
> > where the same relative relationships hold.
> >
> > Most important is being able to find the home directory
> > in the gnuplot script in a system independent way.
> > For example, I'd like my home and work computers
> > to have an output folder that is fixed relative to the home directory,
> > and I'd like Gnuplot to be able to find it without relying on `system`,
> > which requires a different commands depending on the shell.
> > (Powershell or cmd on Windows, vs zsh on Mac, vs bash or dash on Linux,
> > etc.)
> >
> > Also desirable is for the script to be able to find data
> > relative to the script's location, no matter what the
> > current working directory from which Gnuplot is launched.
> > As a simple example, suppose I am in folder `a` and do
> > gnuplot ./gnuplot/myscript.gpi
> > Then the pwd for Gnuplot becomes `a`, not the script directory.
> > In the script, I'd like to ask Gnuplot for the script directory.
> >
> > Hope that's clearer, Alan
> >
> > On Thu, Feb 26, 2026 at 7:34 AM Peter Rockett via gnuplot-info <
> > gnu...@li...> wrote:
> >
> >> Not totally clear of the objective here, but FWIW, you can specify a
> >> path using "./abc/efg/hij" (i.e. using a forward slash) on both Windows
> >> /and/ Unix/Linux, whereas Unix does not understand the '\' character in
> >> this context. So the forward slash is system independent.
> >>
> >> P.
> >>
> >> On 25/02/2026 18:10, Alan wrote:
> >>> Does Gnuplot offer a system independent way to
> >>> create directory names relative to the home folder (especially)
> >>> and also relative to the script folder?
> >>>
> >>> I am aware of `system`, but that depends on the OS shell.
> >>> I'm not a C programmer, but I believe the tricks to retrieve this
> >>> information in a system independent way are pretty standard. (?)
> >>>
> >>> Thank you.
> >>>
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