CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythoncmdoperating-system
Tkinter Lover
Tkinter Lover

Reputation: 855

Change the directory to "C:\Users\<username>" with Python OS

I want to write a program that goes to the Desktop folder, and do commands like make a folder. I have this:

import os


def run_command(command):
    os.system(f'cmd /c "{command}"')


"""
This command is running in the folder of this Python file, thus I can only access folders from this directory.
But I want it to go to the Desktop folder and make a new directory there. 
"""
run_command("cd Desktop")  # It makes an error "The system cannot find the path specified."
run_command("md Folder")
r"""I want the directory to be C:\Users\<username>"""

As you can see in the comments, it does everything in the directory you ran this Python file. But I want the directory to be "C:\Users<username>". This is what you get if your open cmd prompt manually. How do I make its directory be "C:\Users<username>"? Or if there is a better way, how do I do it?

Thank you for helping.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 3302

Answers (3)

ArjunSahlot
ArjunSahlot

Reputation: 502

Like James said, os.chdir should work. But you should keep in mind that the character \ is an escape character, and in order to use it, the string must be prefixed with a r: r"C:\Users\user" or it must be escaped: "C:\\Users\\user".

Also a easy way to get the current user is by using the built-in getpass module.

import getpass
print(getpass.getuser())

Upvotes: 2

lit
lit

Reputation: 16236

This code makes use of environment variables to get the correct Desktop directory and to invoke the correct command processor.

It also uses os.path.join to create the directory path. Since Desktop is hardcoded, a REVERSE SOLIDUS (backslash) could probably also be hardcoded. But, making a practice of using os.path.join will make code portable to all systems on which Python runs.

import os

def run_command(command):
    os.chdir(os.path.join(os.environ['USERPROFILE'], 'Desktop'))
    os.system(os.environ['ComSpec'] + ' /c "cd"')

Upvotes: 1

James
James

Reputation: 36608

Use os.chdir to change the directory that Python is "running in".

os.chdir('C:\Users\someuser')

Upvotes: 1

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