CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpython-os
Jay Jung
Jay Jung

Reputation: 1895

How do I get the directory name of the file that's being executed, even when I'm executing the file from outside of it's directory?

I am not looking for os.getcwd(), since that seems to return your location at the moment you're executing the script.

If I am in /Users/jo/Documents/, and I execute the script: /Users/scripts/python/myScript.py, what can I execute from within my script, in order to check that /Users/scripts/python/siblingScript.py exists?

So I was thinking that I would get the directory name of the file that's being executed first, and then call (...).exists("siblingScript.py") on it.

How would I get this right?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 44

Answers (1)

Mike Sherrill 'Cat Recall'
Mike Sherrill 'Cat Recall'

Reputation: 95522

Details are a little different depending on whether you're executing /Users/scripts/python/myScript.py by its full path name or by a relative path. But in any case you can use functions in os.path. You probably want isfile() rather than exists(). 

>>> import os.path
>>> p = os.path.dirname("/Users/scripts/python/myScript.py")
>>> p
'/Users/scripts/python'
>>> f = os.path.join(p, "siblingScript.py")
>>> f
'/Users/scripts/python/siblingScript.py'
>>> os.path.isfile(f)
True

If you're executing myScript.py by a relative path, use abspath().

>>> os.getcwd()
'/home/msherrill/test/Users/jo/Documents'
>>> p = os.path.dirname("../../scripts/python/myScript.py")
>>> p
'../../scripts/python'
>>> os.path.abspath(p)
'/home/msherrill/test/Users/scripts/python'

You should read the Python os.path docs specific to your version of Python. There are some application-specific, subtle details.

Upvotes: 1

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