Retrieves the current directory for the current process.

Syntax

DWORD WINAPI GetCurrentDirectory(
  __in   DWORD nBufferLength,
  __out  LPTSTR lpBuffer
);

Parameters

nBufferLength [in]

The length of the buffer for the current directory string, in TCHARs. The buffer length must include room for a terminating null character.

lpBuffer [out]

A pointer to the buffer that receives the current directory string. This null-terminated string specifies the absolute path to the current directory.

To determine the required buffer size, set this parameter to NULL and the nBufferLength parameter to 0.

Return Value

If the function succeeds, the return value specifies the number of characters that are written to the buffer, not including the terminating null character.

If the function fails, the return value is zero. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.

If the buffer that is pointed to by lpBuffer is not large enough, the return value specifies the required size of the buffer, in characters, including the null-terminating character.

Remarks

Each process has a single current directory that consists of two parts:

• A disk designator that is either a drive letter followed by a colon, or a server name followed by a share name (\\servername\sharename)
• A directory on the disk designator

To set the current directory, use the SetCurrentDirectory function.

In certain rare cases, if the specified directory is on the current drive, the function might omit the drive letter and colon from the path. Therefore, the size that is returned by the function might be two characters less than the size of the specified string, not including the terminating null character. This behavior might occur in edge situations such as in a services application. If you need the drive letter, make a subsequent call to GetFullPathName to retrieve the drive letter.

Examples

For an example, see Changing the Current Directory.

Requirements

See Also

CreateDirectory
Directory Management Functions
GetSystemDirectory
GetWindowsDirectory
RemoveDirectory
SetCurrentDirectory

Send comments about this topic to Microsoft

Build date: 8/28/2008