A system independent way using python to get the root directory/drive on which python is installed
Question:
For Linux this would give me /
, for Windows on the C drive that would give me C:\
. Note that python is not necessarily installed on the C drive on windows.
Answers:
You can get the path to the Python executable using sys.executable
:
>>> import sys
>>> import os
>>> sys.executable
'/usr/bin/python'
Then, for Windows, the drive letter will be the first part of splitdrive:
>>> os.path.splitdrive(sys.executable)
('', '/usr/bin/python')
Here’s what you need:
import sys, os
def get_sys_exec_root_or_drive():
path = sys.executable
while os.path.split(path)[1]:
path = os.path.split(path)[0]
return path
Try this:
import os
def root_path():
return os.path.abspath(os.sep)
On Linux this returns /
On Windows this returns C:\
or whatever the current drive is
Using pathlib
(Python 3.4+):
import sys
from pathlib import Path
path = Path(sys.executable)
root_or_drive = path.root or path.drive
Based on the answer by Eugene Yarmash, you can use the PurePath.anchor
property in pathlib
as early as Python >= 3.4, which is:
The concatenation of the drive and root
Using sys.executable
to get the location of your python installation, a complete solution would be:
import sys
from pathlib import Path
root = Path(sys.executable).anchor
This results in '/'
on POSIX (Linux, Mac OS) and should give you 'c:\'
on Windows (assuming your installation is on c:
). You can use any other path instead of sys.executable
to get the drive and root where this other path is located.
Here’s a cross platform, PY2/3 compatible function that returns the root for a given path. Based on your context, you can feed the python executable path into it, the path where the script resides, or whatever makes sense for your use case.
import os
def rootpath( path ):
return os.path.splitdrive(os.path.abspath( path ))[0] + os.sep
So for the root path of the Python interpreter:
import sys
PY_ROOT_PATH = rootpath( sys.executable )
For Linux this would give me /
, for Windows on the C drive that would give me C:\
. Note that python is not necessarily installed on the C drive on windows.
You can get the path to the Python executable using sys.executable
:
>>> import sys
>>> import os
>>> sys.executable
'/usr/bin/python'
Then, for Windows, the drive letter will be the first part of splitdrive:
>>> os.path.splitdrive(sys.executable)
('', '/usr/bin/python')
Here’s what you need:
import sys, os
def get_sys_exec_root_or_drive():
path = sys.executable
while os.path.split(path)[1]:
path = os.path.split(path)[0]
return path
Try this:
import os
def root_path():
return os.path.abspath(os.sep)
On Linux this returns /
On Windows this returns C:\
or whatever the current drive is
Using pathlib
(Python 3.4+):
import sys
from pathlib import Path
path = Path(sys.executable)
root_or_drive = path.root or path.drive
Based on the answer by Eugene Yarmash, you can use the PurePath.anchor
property in pathlib
as early as Python >= 3.4, which is:
The concatenation of the drive and root
Using sys.executable
to get the location of your python installation, a complete solution would be:
import sys
from pathlib import Path
root = Path(sys.executable).anchor
This results in '/'
on POSIX (Linux, Mac OS) and should give you 'c:\'
on Windows (assuming your installation is on c:
). You can use any other path instead of sys.executable
to get the drive and root where this other path is located.
Here’s a cross platform, PY2/3 compatible function that returns the root for a given path. Based on your context, you can feed the python executable path into it, the path where the script resides, or whatever makes sense for your use case.
import os
def rootpath( path ):
return os.path.splitdrive(os.path.abspath( path ))[0] + os.sep
So for the root path of the Python interpreter:
import sys
PY_ROOT_PATH = rootpath( sys.executable )