I would like to use relative paths along with subprocess module in order to be able to run different executables.
For getting relative paths and, after reading different threads, I think pathlib module is the best option to do that.
Let assume I have the python script in a particular folder in Windows. Inside it (the previous folder), I have other folders with the executables I want to run. Here it is when subprocess module comes in. However, I do not know how to include the relative paths created with pathlib module into subprocess args field.
From subprocess API I can read that 'args should be a sequence of program arguments or else a single string'.
import pathlib
import subprocess
in_file_1 = pathlib.Path.cwd() / "folder2" / "folder3" / "whatever.exe"
p = subprocess.Popen(str(in_file_1), shell = True)
I would expect to see the whatever.exe process running on the administrator tasks but the process is not started. How can I achieve that? Is there something I am ingoring? Should I just give the relative path from where the python script is saved?
You are confusing the current working directory, which is what pathlib.Path.cwd() returns, with the script's location.
If you want the script's dir, you can use __file__, for instance like this:
import pathlib
cwd = pathlib.Path.cwd()
script_file = pathlib.Path(__file__)
script_location = script_file.parent
print("The current dir is", pathlib.Path.cwd())
print("The current script is", script_file)
print("The current script's dir is", script_file.parent)
which will return:
The current dir is /home/nicoco
The current script is /tmp/so.py
The current script's dir is /tmp
I would like to use the filepath of where I called Python from, but I have not found the solution for this yet (perhaps I'm bad at searching).
Example:
Contents of foo.py:
import sys
print(sys.path)
$ pwd
/Here
$ python3 folder1/foo.py
'/Here/folder1'
This is the result I currently get, but I would like to have access to '/Here'.
Save it to a variable
import os
pypath = os.getcwd()
In general the os module will be useful for these types of things and if you want to look at all the files in the current directory(path) then its os.listdir("."), note the "." will equal os.listdir()
You need to use os.getcwd() from os module. sys.path contains list of paths in which python will search for the modules that you are importing
I used to open files that were in the same directory as the currently running Python script by simply using a command like:
open("Some file.txt", "r")
However, I discovered that when the script was run in Windows by double-clicking it, it would try to open the file from the wrong directory.
Since then I've used a command of the form
open(os.path.join(sys.path[0], "Some file.txt"), "r")
whenever I wanted to open a file. This works for my particular usage, but I'm not sure if sys.path[0] might fail in some other use case.
So my question is: What is the best and most reliable way to open a file that's in the same directory as the currently running Python script?
Here's what I've been able to figure out so far:
os.getcwd() and os.path.abspath('') return the "current working directory", not the script directory.
os.path.dirname(sys.argv[0]) and os.path.dirname(__file__) return the path used to call the script, which may be relative or even blank (if the script is in the cwd). Also, __file__ does not exist when the script is run in IDLE or PythonWin.
sys.path[0] and os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(sys.argv[0])) seem to return the script directory. I'm not sure if there's any difference between these two.
Edit:
I just realized that what I want to do would be better described as "open a file in the same directory as the containing module". In other words, if I import a module I wrote that's in another directory, and that module opens a file, I want it to look for the file in the module's directory. I don't think anything I've found is able to do that...
I always use:
__location__ = os.path.realpath(
os.path.join(os.getcwd(), os.path.dirname(__file__)))
The join() call prepends the current working directory, but the documentation says that if some path is absolute, all other paths left of it are dropped. Therefore, getcwd() is dropped when dirname(__file__) returns an absolute path.
Also, the realpath call resolves symbolic links if any are found. This avoids troubles when deploying with setuptools on Linux systems (scripts are symlinked to /usr/bin/ -- at least on Debian).
You may the use the following to open up files in the same folder:
f = open(os.path.join(__location__, 'bundled-resource.jpg'))
# ...
I use this to bundle resources with several Django application on both Windows and Linux and it works like a charm!
On Python 3.4, the pathlib module was added, and the following code will reliably open a file in the same directory as the current script:
from pathlib import Path
p = Path(__file__).with_name('file.txt')
with p.open('r') as f:
print(f.read())
If you instead need the file path as a string for some open-like API, you can get it using absolute():
p = Path(__file__).with_name('file.txt')
filename = p.absolute()
NOTE: Python REPLs such as running the python command without a target or ipython do not expose __file__.
To quote from the Python documentation:
As initialized upon program startup, the first item of this list, path[0], is the directory containing the script that was used to invoke the Python interpreter. If the script directory is not available (e.g. if the interpreter is invoked interactively or if the script is read from standard input), path[0] is the empty string, which directs Python to search modules in the current directory first. Notice that the script directory is inserted before the entries inserted as a result of PYTHONPATH.
If you are running the script from the terminal, sys.path[0] is what you are looking for.
However, if you have:
barpath/bar.py
import foopath.foo
foopath/foo.py
print sys.path[0] # you get barpath
So watch out!
Ok here is what I do
sys.argv is always what you type into the terminal or use as the file path when executing it with python.exe or pythonw.exe
For example you can run the file text.py several ways, they each give you a different answer they always give you the path that python was typed.
C:\Documents and Settings\Admin>python test.py
sys.argv[0]: test.py
C:\Documents and Settings\Admin>python "C:\Documents and Settings\Admin\test.py"
sys.argv[0]: C:\Documents and Settings\Admin\test.py
Ok so know you can get the file name, great big deal, now to get the application directory you can know use os.path, specifically abspath and dirname
import sys, os
print os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(sys.argv[0]))
That will output this:
C:\Documents and Settings\Admin\
it will always output this no matter if you type python test.py or python "C:\Documents and Settings\Admin\test.py"
The problem with using __file__
Consider these two files
test.py
import sys
import os
def paths():
print "__file__: %s" % __file__
print "sys.argv: %s" % sys.argv[0]
a_f = os.path.abspath(__file__)
a_s = os.path.abspath(sys.argv[0])
print "abs __file__: %s" % a_f
print "abs sys.argv: %s" % a_s
if __name__ == "__main__":
paths()
import_test.py
import test
import sys
test.paths()
print "--------"
print __file__
print sys.argv[0]
Output of "python test.py"
C:\Documents and Settings\Admin>python test.py
__file__: test.py
sys.argv: test.py
abs __file__: C:\Documents and Settings\Admin\test.py
abs sys.argv: C:\Documents and Settings\Admin\test.py
Output of "python test_import.py"
C:\Documents and Settings\Admin>python test_import.py
__file__: C:\Documents and Settings\Admin\test.pyc
sys.argv: test_import.py
abs __file__: C:\Documents and Settings\Admin\test.pyc
abs sys.argv: C:\Documents and Settings\Admin\test_import.py
--------
test_import.py
test_import.py
So as you can see file gives you always the python file it is being run from, where as sys.argv[0] gives you the file that you ran from the interpreter always. Depending on your needs you will need to choose which one best fits your needs.
I commonly use the following. It works for testing and probably other use cases as well.
with open(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), 'some_file.txt'), 'r') as f:
This answer is recommended in https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10174211/how-to-make-an-always-relative-to-current-module-file-path

Can you try this simple approach just like this:
import os
my_local_file = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), 'some_file.txt')
f = open(my_local_file, "r")
my_local_data = f.read()
Because I get an error trying to use __file__ or sys.argv[0] from emacs I do it that way:
from inspect import getfile
from pathlib import Path
script_path = getfile(lambda: None)
print(script_path)
parent_path = Path(script_path).parent
print(parent_path)
with open(parent_path/'Some file.txt', 'r') as obFile:
print(obFile.read())
After trying all of this solutions, I still had different problems. So what I found the simplest way was to create a python file: config.py, with a dictionary containing the file's absolute path and import it into the script.
something like
import config as cfg
import pandas as pd
pd.read_csv(cfg.paths['myfilepath'])
where config.py has inside:
paths = {'myfilepath': 'home/docs/...'}
It is not automatic but it is a good solution when you have to work in different directory or different machines.
I'd do it this way:
from os.path import abspath, exists
f_path = abspath("fooabar.txt")
if exists(f_path):
with open(f_path) as f:
print f.read()
The above code builds an absolute path to the file using abspath and is equivalent to using normpath(join(os.getcwd(), path)) [that's from the pydocs]. It then checks if that file actually exists and then uses a context manager to open it so you don't have to remember to call close on the file handle. IMHO, doing it this way will save you a lot of pain in the long run.
I have scripts calling other script files but I need to get the filepath of the file that is currently running within the process.
For example, let's say I have three files. Using execfile:
script_1.py calls script_2.py.
In turn, script_2.py calls script_3.py.
How can I get the file name and path of script_3.py, from code within script_3.py, without having to pass that information as arguments from script_2.py?
(Executing os.getcwd() returns the original starting script's filepath not the current file's.)
__file__
as others have said. You may also want to use os.path.realpath to eliminate symlinks:
import os
os.path.realpath(__file__)
p1.py:
execfile("p2.py")
p2.py:
import inspect, os
print (inspect.getfile(inspect.currentframe())) # script filename (usually with path)
print (os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(inspect.getfile(inspect.currentframe())))) # script directory
Update 2018-11-28:
Here is a summary of experiments with Python 2 and 3. With
main.py - runs foo.py
foo.py - runs lib/bar.py
lib/bar.py - prints filepath expressions
| Python | Run statement | Filepath expression |
|--------+---------------------+----------------------------------------|
| 2 | execfile | os.path.abspath(inspect.stack()[0][1]) |
| 2 | from lib import bar | __file__ |
| 3 | exec | (wasn't able to obtain it) |
| 3 | import lib.bar | __file__ |
For Python 2, it might be clearer to switch to packages so can use from lib import bar - just add empty __init__.py files to the two folders.
For Python 3, execfile doesn't exist - the nearest alternative is exec(open(<filename>).read()), though this affects the stack frames. It's simplest to just use import foo and import lib.bar - no __init__.py files needed.
See also Difference between import and execfile
Original Answer:
Here is an experiment based on the answers in this thread - with Python 2.7.10 on Windows.
The stack-based ones are the only ones that seem to give reliable results. The last two have the shortest syntax, i.e. -
print os.path.abspath(inspect.stack()[0][1]) # C:\filepaths\lib\bar.py
print os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(inspect.stack()[0][1])) # C:\filepaths\lib
Here's to these being added to sys as functions! Credit to #Usagi and #pablog
Based on the following three files, and running main.py from its folder with python main.py (also tried execfiles with absolute paths and calling from a separate folder).
C:\filepaths\main.py: execfile('foo.py')
C:\filepaths\foo.py: execfile('lib/bar.py')
C:\filepaths\lib\bar.py:
import sys
import os
import inspect
print "Python " + sys.version
print
print __file__ # main.py
print sys.argv[0] # main.py
print inspect.stack()[0][1] # lib/bar.py
print sys.path[0] # C:\filepaths
print
print os.path.realpath(__file__) # C:\filepaths\main.py
print os.path.abspath(__file__) # C:\filepaths\main.py
print os.path.basename(__file__) # main.py
print os.path.basename(os.path.realpath(sys.argv[0])) # main.py
print
print sys.path[0] # C:\filepaths
print os.path.abspath(os.path.split(sys.argv[0])[0]) # C:\filepaths
print os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)) # C:\filepaths
print os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(sys.argv[0])) # C:\filepaths
print os.path.dirname(__file__) # (empty string)
print
print inspect.getfile(inspect.currentframe()) # lib/bar.py
print os.path.abspath(inspect.getfile(inspect.currentframe())) # C:\filepaths\lib\bar.py
print os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(inspect.getfile(inspect.currentframe()))) # C:\filepaths\lib
print
print os.path.abspath(inspect.stack()[0][1]) # C:\filepaths\lib\bar.py
print os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(inspect.stack()[0][1])) # C:\filepaths\lib
print
I think this is cleaner:
import inspect
print inspect.stack()[0][1]
and gets the same information as:
print inspect.getfile(inspect.currentframe())
Where [0] is the current frame in the stack (top of stack) and [1] is for the file name, increase to go backwards in the stack i.e.
print inspect.stack()[1][1]
would be the file name of the script that called the current frame. Also, using [-1] will get you to the bottom of the stack, the original calling script.
import os
os.path.dirname(__file__) # relative directory path
os.path.abspath(__file__) # absolute file path
os.path.basename(__file__) # the file name only
The suggestions marked as best are all true if your script consists of only one file.
If you want to find out the name of the executable (i.e. the root file passed to the python interpreter for the current program) from a file that may be imported as a module, you need to do this (let's assume this is in a file named foo.py):
import inspect
print inspect.stack()[-1][1]
Because the last thing ([-1]) on the stack is the first thing that went into it (stacks are LIFO/FILO data structures).
Then in file bar.py if you import foo it'll print bar.py, rather than foo.py, which would be the value of all of these:
__file__
inspect.getfile(inspect.currentframe())
inspect.stack()[0][1]
Since Python 3 is fairly mainstream, I wanted to include a pathlib answer, as I believe that it is probably now a better tool for accessing file and path information.
from pathlib import Path
current_file: Path = Path(__file__).resolve()
If you are seeking the directory of the current file, it is as easy as adding .parent to the Path() statement:
current_path: Path = Path(__file__).parent.resolve()
It's not entirely clear what you mean by "the filepath of the file that is currently running within the process".
sys.argv[0] usually contains the location of the script that was invoked by the Python interpreter.
Check the sys documentation for more details.
As #Tim and #Pat Notz have pointed out, the __file__ attribute provides access to
the file from which the module was
loaded, if it was loaded from a file
import os
print os.path.basename(__file__)
this will give us the filename only. i.e. if abspath of file is c:\abcd\abc.py then 2nd line will print abc.py
I have a script that must work under windows environment.
This code snipped is what I've finished with:
import os,sys
PROJECT_PATH = os.path.abspath(os.path.split(sys.argv[0])[0])
it's quite a hacky decision. But it requires no external libraries and it's the most important thing in my case.
Try this,
import os
os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))
import os
os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
No need for inspect or any other library.
This worked for me when I had to import a script (from a different directory then the executed script), that used a configuration file residing in the same folder as the imported script.
The __file__ attribute works for both the file containing the main execution code as well as imported modules.
See https://web.archive.org/web/20090918095828/http://pyref.infogami.com/__file__
import sys
print sys.path[0]
this would print the path of the currently executing script
I think it's just __file__ Sounds like you may also want to checkout the inspect module.
You can use inspect.stack()
import inspect,os
inspect.stack()[0] => (<frame object at 0x00AC2AC0>, 'g:\\Python\\Test\\_GetCurrentProgram.py', 15, '<module>', ['print inspect.stack()[0]\n'], 0)
os.path.abspath (inspect.stack()[0][1]) => 'g:\\Python\\Test\\_GetCurrentProgram.py'
import sys
print sys.argv[0]
print(__file__)
print(__import__("pathlib").Path(__file__).parent)
This should work:
import os,sys
filename=os.path.basename(os.path.realpath(sys.argv[0]))
dirname=os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(sys.argv[0]))
Here is what I use so I can throw my code anywhere without issue. __name__ is always defined, but __file__ is only defined when the code is run as a file (e.g. not in IDLE/iPython).
if '__file__' in globals():
self_name = globals()['__file__']
elif '__file__' in locals():
self_name = locals()['__file__']
else:
self_name = __name__
Alternatively, this can be written as:
self_name = globals().get('__file__', locals().get('__file__', __name__))
To get directory of executing script
print os.path.dirname( inspect.getfile(inspect.currentframe()))
I used the approach with __file__
os.path.abspath(__file__)
but there is a little trick, it returns the .py file
when the code is run the first time,
next runs give the name of *.pyc file
so I stayed with:
inspect.getfile(inspect.currentframe())
or
sys._getframe().f_code.co_filename
I wrote a function which take into account eclipse debugger and unittest.
It return the folder of the first script you launch. You can optionally specify the __file__ var, but the main thing is that you don't have to share this variable across all your calling hierarchy.
Maybe you can handle others stack particular cases I didn't see, but for me it's ok.
import inspect, os
def getRootDirectory(_file_=None):
"""
Get the directory of the root execution file
Can help: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/50499/how-do-i-get-the-path-and-name-of-the-file-that-is-currently-executing
For eclipse user with unittest or debugger, the function search for the correct folder in the stack
You can pass __file__ (with 4 underscores) if you want the caller directory
"""
# If we don't have the __file__ :
if _file_ is None:
# We get the last :
rootFile = inspect.stack()[-1][1]
folder = os.path.abspath(rootFile)
# If we use unittest :
if ("/pysrc" in folder) & ("org.python.pydev" in folder):
previous = None
# We search from left to right the case.py :
for el in inspect.stack():
currentFile = os.path.abspath(el[1])
if ("unittest/case.py" in currentFile) | ("org.python.pydev" in currentFile):
break
previous = currentFile
folder = previous
# We return the folder :
return os.path.dirname(folder)
else:
# We return the folder according to specified __file__ :
return os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(_file_))
Simplest way is:
in script_1.py:
import subprocess
subprocess.call(['python3',<path_to_script_2.py>])
in script_2.py:
sys.argv[0]
P.S.: I've tried execfile, but since it reads script_2.py as a string, sys.argv[0] returned <string>.
The following returns the path where your current main script is located at. I tested this with Linux, Win10, IPython and Jupyter Lab. I needed a solution that works for local Jupyter notebooks as well.
import builtins
import os
import sys
def current_dir():
if "get_ipython" in globals() or "get_ipython" in dir(builtins):
# os.getcwd() is PROBABLY the dir that hosts the active notebook script.
# See also https://github.com/ipython/ipython/issues/10123
return os.getcwd()
else:
return os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(sys.argv[0]))
Finding the home directory of the path in which your Python script resides
As an addendum to the other answers already here (and not answering the OP's question, since other answers already do that), if the path to your script is /home/gabriel/GS/dev/eRCaGuy_dotfiles/useful_scripts/cpu_logger.py, and you wish to obtain the home directory part of that path, which is /home/gabriel, you can do this:
import os
# Obtain the home dir of the user in whose home directory this script resides
script_path_list = os.path.normpath(__file__).split(os.sep)
home_dir = os.path.join("/", script_path_list[1], script_path_list[2])
To help make sense of this, here are the paths for __file__, script_path_list, and home_dir. Notice that script_path_list is a list of the path components, with the first element being an empty string since it originally contained the / root dir path separator for this Linux path:
__file__ = /home/gabriel/GS/dev/eRCaGuy_dotfiles/useful_scripts/cpu_logger.py
script_path_list = ['', 'home', 'gabriel', 'GS', 'dev', 'eRCaGuy_dotfiles', 'useful_scripts', 'cpu_logger.py']
home_dir = /home/gabriel
Source:
Python: obtain the path to the home directory of the user in whose directory the script being run is located [duplicate]