Python os.system() call runs in incorrect directory

Question

My coworker is having trouble with a Python install. When running the code below, from 'C:\my\folder\', 'C:\' is returned instead of the current working directory. When I or anyone else run the script on our systems, we get 'C:\my\folder\'.

We're assuming that some global setting must be causing the issue, so I've had the person uninstall Python, delete the local Python2.7 folder, clean the registry and reinstall the Python, but it's still not working.

NOTE: We have a large number of legacy scripts, so revising all of them to use subprocess is impractical. :(

Any ideas?

Environment: Windows XP, Python 2.7

import os

#
#  This test script demonstrates issue on the users computer when python invokes
#  a subshell via the standard os.system() call.
#

print "This is what python thinks the current working directory is..."
print os.getcwd()
print
print

print "but when i execute a command *from* python, this is what i get for the current working directory"
os.system('echo %cd%')

raw_input()

Answer 1

you could also try something like this

os.chdir("C:\\to\\my\\folder")
print os.system("echo %CD%")
raw_input()

also to get the current working directory i use a different approach

cur_dir = os.path.abspath(".")

Answer 2

os.getcwd() isn't guarenteed to get the location of your script when it is called. Your coworker might be calling the script a different way or his computer (for some reason) handles the current working directory differently.

To get the actual script location you should use the following:

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

As an example I wrote getcwd and the above line in the same script and ran it from C:\.

Results:

C:\>python C:\Users\pies\Desktop\test.py
C:\Users\pies\Desktop
C:\

It depends on what your real purpose for this script is, whether you actually need the current working directory, or just the current scripts directory. As a little caveat this call will return a different directory if you call a script from script which then uses this call.