How do I get the full path of the current file's directory?

Question

I want to get the current file's directory path. I tried:

>>> os.path.abspath(__file__) 'C:\\python27\\test.py' 

But how can I retrieve the directory's path?

For example:

'C:\\python27\\' 

Answer 1

The special variable __file__ contains the path to the current file. From that we can get the directory using either Pathlib or the os.path module.

Python 3

For the directory of the script being run:

import pathlib pathlib.Path(__file__).parent.resolve() 

For the current working directory:

import pathlib pathlib.Path().resolve() 

Python 2 and 3

For the directory of the script being run:

import os os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)) 

If you mean the current working directory:

import os os.path.abspath(os.getcwd()) 

Note that before and after file is two underscores, not just one.

Also note that if you are running interactively or have loaded code from something other than a file (eg: a database or online resource), __file__ may not be set since there is no notion of "current file". The above answer assumes the most common scenario of running a python script that is in a file.

References

1. pathlib in the python documentation.
2. os.path - Python 2.7, os.path - Python 3
3. os.getcwd - Python 2.7, os.getcwd - Python 3
4. what does the __file__ variable mean/do?

Answer 2

Using Path is the recommended way since Python 3:

from pathlib import Path print("File      Path:", Path(__file__).absolute()) print("Directory Path:", Path().absolute()) # Directory of current working directory, not __file__   

Documentation: pathlib

Note: If using Jupyter Notebook, __file__ doesn't return expected value, so Path().absolute() has to be used.