python: get directory two levels up

Question

Ok...I dont know where module x is, but I know that I need to get the path to the directory two levels up.

So, is there a more elegant way to do:

import os two_up = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(__file__)) 

Solutions for both Python 2 and 3 are welcome!

Answer 1

You can use pathlib. Unfortunately this is only available in the stdlib for Python 3.4. If you have an older version you'll have to install a copy from PyPI here. This should be easy to do using pip.

from pathlib import Path  p = Path(__file__).parents[1]  print(p) # /absolute/path/to/two/levels/up 

This uses the parents sequence which provides access to the parent directories and chooses the 2nd one up.

Note that p in this case will be some form of Path object, with their own methods. If you need the paths as string then you can call str on them.