How to change working directory for calculation and save

Question

Hello Mathematica users,

I have problem to set working directory, I want to calculate and save my data on D, but down you can see that mathematica shift automatically on old C. How to use D partition for calculating if mathematica is installed on C?

If I do calculation as this, file is saved on D but first it is saved on C and on C I don't have enough space.

  In[7]:= ResetDirectory[] 


  "C:\\Users\\user\\Documents"

  In[8]:= DirectoryStack[]

  Out[8]= {}

  In[10]:= SetDirectory["D:\\"]

  Out[10]= "D:\\"

  A:=5;

  Export["A.wdx", A];

  In[13]:= DirectoryStack[] 

  {"C:\\Users\\user\\Documents"}

Answer 1

The Documentation page for ResetDirectory says under "MORE INFORMATION" field:

Successive calls to ResetDirectory yield earlier and earlier current directories.

ResetDirectory uses the directory stack given by DirectoryStack[].

ResetDirectory removes the last element from the directory stack, and makes the second-to-last element current.

And the page for DirectoryStack[] says:

Each call to SetDirectory prepends one element to the directory stack; each call to ResetDirectory drops one.

So it is not surprizing that DirectoryStack[] initially is a blank list. The call to SetDirectory adds to this list one element: previous working directory. To get the current working directory you should evaluate Directory[].

Answer 2

The exact code (I also happen to have a D partition:) runs fine on my computer (Win7, mma 8). The file is created in D:\, just the output of DirectoryStack is misleading. I don't really know, why it doesn't include D:\

You can check your current working directory using Directoy.

ResetDirectory[]

(* ==> "E:\\Projekti\\MD\\SCRIPTS\\mathematica\\FitSpectra" *)

DirectoryStack[]

(* ==> {"C:\\Users\\ajasja\\Documents"} *)

SetDirectory["D:\\"]

(* ==> "D:\\" *)

A := 5;

Export["A.wdx", A];

DirectoryStack[]

(*
==> {"E:\\Projekti\\MD\\SCRIPTS\\mathematica\\FitSpectra", \
"C:\\Users\\ajasja\\Documents"}
*)

Directory[]

(* ==> "D:\\" *)