In this post, we will see how to resolve How to tell python to use same directory for file
Question:
I need this python project to be useable for multiple users after downloading it from git, but I’m having a problem generalizing paths. I have it set to use absolute paths in my version, but that will break for others, and if I’m using a file in the same directory as the module, python can’t find it if I use the relative path (i.e.,with open('foo.txt') as f).I settled on a text file called properties.txt in the project directory, and a module that reads it into a dict. Right now it just has one line,
MAIN_DIR=/my/home/directory. The problem is circular though. I can’t use a relative path to read that text file either.I’m confident this solution is overengineered. There’s got to be a way to get around that, or to get around the problem with relative paths in the first place?
Best Answer:
There are a few different approaches, depending on your needs and constraints.One option is to use some “standard” location. For instance,
~/.config/myprog/foo.conf is a standardized way to locate per-user configuration files.Another option is to have an environment variable, that your user must set. Perhaps with fallback to a “default” path of some sort (like above).
Another option, for something like a script, is to use something like
cd "$(dirname "$0")"/.. — that’s Bash script, but you get the idea. In Python you’d use sys.argv[0]. This makes the current working directory the one in which the script is located. You can use relative paths from then onward.The question mentioned in your comments has a good general overview: https://stackoverflow.com/a/58941536/567650
It depends a bit on how fancy your build/packaging setup is. If you’re just sending a file or three, then the above “change the current directory” approach is common and would probably work okay, but would fall under the “Bad way #1:” heading, in the other answer I linked.
If you have better answer, please add a comment about this, thank you!
Source: Stackoverflow.com