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" 

Answer 1

>>> 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' 

Answer 2

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