What's the difference between process.cwd() vs __dirname?

Question

What's the difference between

console.log(process.cwd()) 

and

console.log(__dirname); 

I've seen both used in similar contexts.

Answer 1

process.cwd() returns the current working directory,

i.e. the directory from which you invoked the node command.

__dirname returns the directory name of the directory containing the JavaScript source code file

Answer 2

As per node js doc process.cwd()

cwd is a method of global object process, returns a string value which is the current working directory of the Node.js process.

As per node js doc __dirname

The directory name of current script as a string value. __dirname is not actually a global but rather local to each module.

Let me explain with example,

suppose we have a main.js file that resides inside C:/Project/main.js and running node main.js both these values return same file

or simply with the following folder structure

Project  ├── main.js └──lib    └── script.js 

main.js

console.log(process.cwd()) // C:\Project console.log(__dirname) // C:\Project console.log(__dirname===process.cwd()) // true 

suppose we have another file script.js files inside a sub directory of project, i.e. C:/Project/lib/script.js and running node main.js which require script.js

main.js

require('./lib/script.js') console.log(process.cwd()) // C:\Project console.log(__dirname) // C:\Project console.log(__dirname===process.cwd()) // true 

script.js

console.log(process.cwd()) // C:\Project console.log(__dirname) // C:\Project\lib console.log(__dirname===process.cwd()) // false 

Simply it can be stated as:

process.cwd() returns the value of directory where we run the node process, whereas

__dirname returns the value of directory where the current running file resides.