Relative paths in Python

In the file that has the script, you want to do something like this:

import os
dirname = os.path.dirname(__file__)
filename = os.path.join(dirname, 'relative/path/to/file/you/want')

This will give you the absolute path to the file you're looking for. Note that if you're using setuptools, you should probably use its package resources API instead.

UPDATE: I'm responding to a comment here so I can paste a code sample. :-)

Am I correct in thinking that __file__ is not always available (e.g. when you run the file directly rather than importing it)?

I'm assuming you mean the __main__ script when you mention running the file directly. If so, that doesn't appear to be the case on my system (python 2.5.1 on OS X 10.5.7):

#foo.py
import os
print os.getcwd()
print __file__

#in the interactive interpreter
>>> import foo
/Users/jason
foo.py

#and finally, at the shell:
~ % python foo.py
/Users/jason
foo.py

However, I do know that there are some quirks with __file__ on C extensions. For example, I can do this on my Mac:

>>> import collections #note that collections is a C extension in Python 2.5
>>> collections.__file__
'/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/lib-
dynload/collections.so'

However, this raises an exception on my Windows machine.

It's 2018 now, and Python have already evolve to the __future__ long time ago. So how about using the amazing pathlib coming with Python 3.4 to accomplish the task instead of struggling with os, os.path, glob , shutil, etc.

So we have 3 paths here (possibly duplicated):

• mod_path: which is the path of the simple helper script
• src_path: which contains a couple of template files waiting to be copied.
• cwd: current directory, the destination of those template files.

and the problem is: we don't have the full path of src_path, only know it's relative path to the mod_path.

Now let's solve this with the the amazing pathlib:

# Hope you don't be imprisoned by legacy Python code :)
from pathlib import Path

# `cwd`: current directory is straightforward
cwd = Path.cwd()

# `mod_path`: According to the accepted answer and combine with future power
# if we are in the `helper_script.py`
mod_path = Path(__file__).parent
# OR if we are `import helper_script`
mod_path = Path(helper_script.__file__).parent

# `src_path`: with the future power, it's just so straightforward
relative_path_1 = 'same/parent/with/helper/script/'
relative_path_2 = '../../or/any/level/up/'
src_path_1 = (mod_path / relative_path_1).resolve()
src_path_2 = (mod_path / relative_path_2).resolve()

In the future, it's just that simple.

---

Moreover, we can select and check and copy/move those template files with pathlib:

if src_path != cwd:
    # When we have different types of files in the `src_path`
    for template_path in src_path.glob('*.ini'):
        fname = template_path.name
        target = cwd / fname
        if not target.exists():
            # This is the COPY action
            with target.open(mode='wb') as fd:
                fd.write(template_path.read_bytes())
            # If we want MOVE action, we could use:
            # template_path.replace(target)