how to find the target file's full(absolute path) of the symbolic link or soft link in python

Question

when i give ls -l /etc/fonts/conf.d/70-yes-bitmaps.conf

lrwxrwxrwx <snip> /etc/fonts/conf.d/70-yes-bitmaps.conf -> ../conf.avail/70-yes-bitmaps.conf 

so for a symbolic link or soft link, how to find the target file's full(absolute path) in python,

If i use

os.readlink('/etc/fonts/conf.d/70-yes-bitmaps.conf')

it outputs

../conf.avail/70-yes-bitmaps.conf

but i need the absolute path not the relative path, so my desired output must be,

/etc/fonts/conf.avail/70-yes-bitmaps.conf

how to replace the .. with the actual full path of the parent directory of the symbolic link or soft link file.

Answer 1

os.path.realpath(path) 

os.path.realpath returns the canonical path of the specified filename, eliminating any symbolic links encountered in the path.

Answer 2

As unutbu says, os.path.realpath(path) should be the right answer, returning the canonical path of the specified filename, resolving any symbolic links to their targets. But it's broken under Windows.

I've created a patch for Python 3.2 to fix this bug, and uploaded it to:

http://bugs.python.org/issue9949

It fixes the realpath() function in Python32\Lib\ntpath.py

I've also put it on my server, here:

http://www.burtonsys.com/ntpath_fix_issue9949.zip

Unfortunately, the bug is present in Python 2.x, too, and I know of no fix for it there.