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When running M-x pdb from Emacs, the current directory seems to be set to that of the directory of the script you are running, so 

pdb ~/path/to/project/__main__.py

Would set the working directory to ~/path/to/project/. However, what if I need the working directory to be a different directory - say, one directory back? Is there a way to set the directory that pdb/gud uses as the "working directory"? At the first pdb prompt I can change the directory with os.chdir(), which works, but I would like to not have to do this every time. Thank you!

Update:

I have found that one potential solution would be to set gud-chdir-before-run (mentioned by @Nsukami_ below) to nil and then change to the desired directory with (cd "/path/to/directory") before running pdb. I tried doing this with the gud-mode-hook but the directory is changed too late. I have also, tried to do this with by advising pdb and gud-mode-hook, but don't yet have the lisp skills for this apparently...Is there a good way to call cd before gud-mode-hook/ before the dubugger starts?

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    Just for my information, what are you trying to achieve? Including the parent directory in the python path? Or maybe something else? There is a variable named gud-chdir-before-run not sure if what you're looking for. – Nsukami _ Nov 21 '15 at 4:26
  • gud-chdir-before-run sounds like exactly what I need. I won't be able to try it until I get to work next week though. It is hard for me to explain better, because I don't quite understand yet what was causing the problem. What I know is, exceptions were being thrown only during debugging, and the way to fix it was to change the working directory to the parent directory of the __main__.py script. All the necessary paths were included in my PYTHONPATH though, as far as I could tell, and everything seemed to be properly imported - that was a problem you already helped me fix the other day ; ) – elethan Nov 21 '15 at 4:40
  • having exactly the same issue, my dir containing python scripts is on my PATH but for some reason pdb doesn't see this, I want to run from the dir with my data in but I can't - its very irritating - the answer below is a terrible clunky solution, way too much typing.. – bph Feb 20 '17 at 15:44
  • As to running M-x gdb within Emacs, I traced the default-directory to comint-exec-1 and then I worked backwards to set my default-directory from within gud-common-init. My goal was to set the working directory so that my preferred .gdbinit was taken into consideration when firing up the gdb executable. I had to modify gud-common-init to prompt me for my preferred working directory and set it accordingly -- of course, we know that it must also have a forward trailing slash for certain platforms ... However, I have no idea about python or pdb. – lawlist Dec 5 '17 at 5:12
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import os; os.chdir('/path/to/dir');

To get know current working directory:

import os; os.getcwd();
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  • Thanks for your answer. I mention this solution in my original question, but I was looking for a solution in Emacs that did not involve adding any Python code to existing scripts or commands at the prompt. – elethan Oct 10 '16 at 15:28

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