How to get the calling directory?

[franklin97355]

Say I have a program in directory A/B and want to call it with data in A/B/C/D from the data directory, how do I tell the program that I want to operate on the data where I am ( read data and write the results)? If you need further information just ask. Thanks.

[menator01]

Have a look at pathlib
A basic example

from pathlib import Path
import os

path = Path(__file__).parent
path2 = Path('/')

print(f'Executing directory...')
subfolders = os.listdir(path)
print(f'Contents -> {", ".join(subfolders)}')

print()
print('Root Directory')
subfolders = os.listdir(path2)
print(f'Contents -> {", ".join(subfolders)}')

output

Output:
Executing directory...
Contents -> test1, test2, test.py

Root Directory
Contents -> libx32, usr, lost+found, proc, dev, mnt, var, opt, root, home, lib64, run, snap, cdrom, lib, sbin, media, boot, etc, swapfile, tmp, lib32, srv, bin, sys

[Gribouillis]

Say I have a program in directory A/B and want to call it with data in A/B/C/D from the data directory, how do I tell the program that I want to operate on the data where I am

I note that this is your third thread about the same subject. Perhaps you could look again at the answers that were given in the other threads?

Or if these answers don't solve the problem, try to describe more precisely what you expect from the program, for example you could give pseudo code explaining what the program does. For example «I want to operate on the data where I am» is cryptic to me.

[deanhystad]

To specify an absolute path that is relative to the current working directory:

from pathlib import Path

data_dir = Path('.') / 'C/D'

Path('.') will return the current working directory. / 'C/D' adds folders C and D to the path. If the current working directory (where you are) is /A/B, data_dir will be /A/B/C/D.

But do you need to do that? It sounds like you just want to run your python program from the folder that contains your data. If your data is in /A/B/C/D, I think you want to just change directories to /A/B/C/D and run your program, which might be in /A/B, but could be anywhere. Is that what you are trying to do?

[kucingkembar]

Say I have a program in directory A/B and want to call it with data in A/B/C/D from the data directory, how do I tell the program that I want to operate on the data where I am ( read data and write the results)? If you need further information just ask. Thanks.

sorry for my English, or misunderstood the question
1. you have 4 folders : A, B, C, and D
2. sometimes you like access folder A, and other sometimes you like access folder B ( or folder C, or folder D)

stupid way : you create py files of each folder, if you have 4 folders, you create 4 py files
professional way : using external args for get what folder to access

import ntpath
print(ntpath.sys.argv[1])

*save text above as "args.py"
you then using it in terminal (CMD) like this

Output:
args.py "Folder A"

[franklin97355]

Perhaps I was not clear (Menator I have not tried your suggestion but I will tomorrow) For the others,I have a program in
~/Documents/invoice/ invoice.py and want to call in from ~/invoice/24/aug. It should read an ics file and write a csv file in the current directory. I already have the program that does this if it is in the same dirxtory as the ics and csv files. Thanks and I will try all suggestions and let you know what I find.

[Gribouillis]

~/Documents/invoice/ invoice.py and want to call in from ~/invoice/24/aug. It should read an ics file and write a csv file in the current directory.

Then you can use this

from pathlib import Path
current_dir = Path.cwd()
ics = current_dir/"myfile.ics"
csv = current_dir/"output.csv"
...

[deanhystad]

invoice.py needs to be in your python path. Then you can run invoice.py from anywhere. To do this you could modify your PYTHONPATH environment variable to include the location of invoice.py, or you can put invoice.py in a folder that is already searched when looking for python files, such as site-packages.

This talks about the python path.

https://www.simplilearn.com/tutorials/py...ython-path

If this is a program that others might use, you can make a python package and add it to a repository. I think this is the best solution for any program you plan on using for a long time. You and others could then pip install yourpackage. Read about python packaging here:

https://packaging.python.org/en/latest/t...-projects/

Once you have your invoice.py file installed in the python path you can run your program in any directory. Just change directories in the shell to the location of your files and run the program. The program does not need to specify a path to the files, treating them as local to the current working directory.

Making a package or setting the PYTHONPATH environment to include the location of invoice.py may be overkill if invoide.py is something you only plan to use a few times. To run a python script that is not in the current directory, specify the path to the script when you run python.

python ~/Documents/invoice/invoice.py

This runs your script in the current working directory. Just change directories in the shell to the location of your files and run the program using the absolute path.

[franklin97355]

I think I haven't explained my question well enough. I have a script in (let's say) ~/invoice called test. From another directory ~/invoice/sep24 I will call python ~/invoice/test.py. What I want is for test.py to know I called it from the sep24 directory and work on that data there. I hope it is not asking too much and appreciate all your help so far. Thank you for putting up with me.

[deanhystad]

test.py does not need to know that you called it from the sep24 directory. Unless you specify a complete path, all paths are relative to the current working directory. For example:

from pathlib import Path

for file in Path.cwd().iterdir():
    if file.suffix.lower() in (".csv", ".xlsx"):
        print(file.name)

This prints the names of all spreadsheets in the current directory .

(venv) >python list_spreadsheets.py
data.csv
data.xlsx
employee.csv
input.csv
test.csv

I change directories to my games folder (a subdirectory).

(venv) >python ../list_spreadsheets.py
high_scores.csv

I change to my desktop folder.

(venv) >python C:\Users\hystadd\Documents\python\sandbox\list_spreadsheets.py
CU_ETHSpec_FE_9.0 (irb 7-26-23).xlsx