How to get an absolute file path in Python
How to get an absolute file path in Python
Question
Given a path such as "mydir/myfile.txt"
, how do I find the file's absolute path relative to the current working directory in Python? E.g. on Windows, I might end up with:
"C:/example/cwd/mydir/myfile.txt"
Accepted Answer
>>> import os
>>> os.path.abspath("mydir/myfile.txt")
'C:/example/cwd/mydir/myfile.txt'
Also works if it is already an absolute path:
>>> import os
>>> os.path.abspath("C:/example/cwd/mydir/myfile.txt")
'C:/example/cwd/mydir/myfile.txt'
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You could use the new Python 3.4 library pathlib
. (You can also get it for Python 2.6 or 2.7 using pip install pathlib
.) The authors wrote: "The aim of this library is to provide a simple hierarchy of classes to handle filesystem paths and the common operations users do over them."
To get an absolute path in Windows:
>>> from pathlib import Path
>>> p = Path("pythonw.exe").resolve()
>>> p
WindowsPath('C:/Python27/pythonw.exe')
>>> str(p)
'C:\\Python27\\pythonw.exe'
Or on UNIX:
>>> from pathlib import Path
>>> p = Path("python3.4").resolve()
>>> p
PosixPath('/opt/python3/bin/python3.4')
>>> str(p)
'/opt/python3/bin/python3.4'
Docs are here: https://docs.python.org/3/library/pathlib.html
Better still, install the module (found on PyPI
), it wraps all the os.path
functions and other related functions into methods on an object that can be used wherever strings are used:
>>> from path import path
>>> path('mydir/myfile.txt').abspath()
'C:\\example\\cwd\\mydir\\myfile.txt'
>>>
Today you can also use the unipath
package which was based on path.py
: http://sluggo.scrapping.cc/python/unipath/
>>> from unipath import Path
>>> absolute_path = Path('mydir/myfile.txt').absolute()
Path('C:\\example\\cwd\\mydir\\myfile.txt')
>>> str(absolute_path)
C:\\example\\cwd\\mydir\\myfile.txt
>>>
I would recommend using this package as it offers a clean interface to common os.path utilities.
Update for Python 3.4+ pathlib
that actually answers the question:
from pathlib import Path
relative = Path("mydir/myfile.txt")
absolute = relative.absolute() # absolute is a Path object
If you only need a temporary string, keep in mind that you can use Path
objects with all the relevant functions in os.path
, including of course abspath
:
from os.path import abspath
absolute = abspath(relative) # absolute is a str object
import os
os.path.abspath(os.path.expanduser(os.path.expandvars(PathNameString)))
Note that expanduser
is necessary (on Unix) in case the given expression for the file (or directory) name and location may contain a leading ~/
(the tilde refers to the user's home directory), and expandvars
takes care of any other environment variables (like $HOME
).