Python pandas read CSV from sibling directory

Question

+-- parent_dir
|   +-- dir1
|       +-- script.py 
|   +-- dir2
|       +-- mycsv.csv

How can we read mycsv.csv from within the script.py script. We've tried pd.read_csv("../dir2/mycsv.csv") and received the error FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory:.

Answer 1

presumably you are not actually running it from inside dir1 (even though you think you are)

however you can do

 file_dir = os.path.dirname(__file__)
 csv_path = os.path.join(file_dir,"..","dir2","mycsv.csv")

and then it should work no matter where you run it from

as an aside you can try

print(os.getcwd())

to see where you are actually executing it from

Answer 2

This depends more on the place you're trying to run script.py from.

For example, if you are in parent_dir and you do python dir1/script.py, then you would refer mycsv.csv as dir2/mycsv.csv.

So, you would either need to specify the full path e.g. /home/user/parent_dir/dir2/mycsv.csv.

If the location is always relative to script.py as you mentioned; you would do as indicated in the answer above.