How to reliably open a file in the same directory as a Python script

Question

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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    sys path 0  is what you are looking for

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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     You can also use parent absolute   to get directory value as a string if needed  p   Path   file    dir abs   p parent absolute      Will return the executable directory absolute path

User · Answer

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 gt python test py     sys argv 0   test py     C  Documents and Settings Admin gt 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 gt 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 gt 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

[python] How to reliably open a file in the same directory as a Python script

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