How can I make my program have a consistent initial current working directory?

Question:

When I run the following script in IDLE

import os
print(os.getcwd())

I get output as

D:testtool

but when I run from cmd prompt, I get

c:Python33>python D:testtoolcurrent_dir.py
c:Python33

How do I get same result which I got using IDLE ?

Asked By: Shriram

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Source

Answers:

It seems that IDLE changes its current working dir to location of the script that is executed, while when running the script using cmd doesn’t do that and it leaves CWD as it is.

To change current working dir to the one containing your script you can use:

import os
os.chdir(os.path.dirname(__file__))
print(os.getcwd())

The __file__ variable is available only if you execute script from file, and it contains path to the file. More on it here: Python __file__ attribute absolute or relative?

Answered By: Maciek

Using pathlib you can get the folder in which the current file is located. __file__ is the pathname of the file from which the module was loaded.
Ref: docs

import pathlib

current_dir = pathlib.Path(__file__).parent
current_file = pathlib.Path(__file__)

Doc ref: link

Answered By: butsyk

Python’s default pathlib library provides the cwd like so:

import pathlib

pathlib.Path.cwd()
Answered By: iacob