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The org manual specifies in the this link: https://orgmode.org/manual/Languages.html#Languages the language it supports (including shell). It mentions this:

Additional documentation for some languages is at https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages.html

The above link points further this page: https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages/index.html

But unfortunately it doesn't have any documentation for the shell language.

What I'm looking is to see if I can change the working directory where it is executed. Something like this:

#+begin_src sh working-dir:/home/some_dir #working-dir doesn't work obviously.
ls
#+end_src

But I'm not able to find documentation on where to find the header arguments for a specific language.

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3
  • You could cd from the first line within the code block? Indeed I did not find much documentation for babel shell. Of course you can check out ob-shell.el.
    – dalanicolai
    Dec 14, 2020 at 11:42
  • I could do that, but I do want to know the different header arguments supported by shell. I could look the source code, but I want that to be the last resort. :-)
    – Sibi
    Dec 14, 2020 at 12:15
  • Doesn't :dir work? I believe it should work even for remote directories. And that's a general mechanism, not restricted to shell - so it probably is documented in the generic header options section, not a language-specific one.
    – NickD
    Dec 14, 2020 at 14:28

1 Answer 1

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3

What you are looking for is the :dir header argument:

#+begin_src shell :dir /home/nick/src
pwd
#+end_src

#+RESULTS:
: /home/nick/src


#+begin_src shell :dir /home/nick/src/github
pwd
#+end_src

#+RESULTS:
: /home/nick/src/github/pbench


#+begin_src python :dir /home/nick/src/
  import os
  pwd = os.getcwd()
  return pwd
#+end_src

#+RESULTS:
: /home/nick/src

Note that it is a language-independent header argument, so you won't find it documented under a specific language: look in the Org mode manual for it:

+begin_src emacs-lisp
(info "(org) Environment of a code block")
#+end_src

and search for the "Choosing a working directory" subsection (or look for the same thing in the online manual.)

Note also that you can use a remote host spec for it, in which case babel will use Tramp to execute the block on the remote host:

#+begin_src shell :dir /scp:foo.bar.org:/home/nick/src :results drawer
hostname
pwd
#+end_src

#+RESULTS:
:results:
foo.bar.org
/home/nick/src
:end:



#+begin_src python :dir /scp:foo.bar.org:/home/nick/src/ :results drawer
  import os
  import socket
  pwd = os.getcwd()
  return (socket.gethostname(), pwd)
#+end_src

#+RESULTS:
:results:
('foo.bar.org', '/home/nick/src')
:end:
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