Why doesn't os.path.join() work in this case?

Do not use forward slashes at the beginning of path components, except when refering to the root directory:

os.path.join('/home/build/test/sandboxes', todaystr, 'new_sandbox')

see also: http://docs.python.org/library/os.path.html#os.path.join

Try with new_sandbox only

os.path.join('/home/build/test/sandboxes/', todaystr, 'new_sandbox')

It’s because your '/new_sandbox/' begins with a / and thus is assumed to be relative to the root directory. Remove the leading /.

do it like this, without too the extra slashes

root="/home"
os.path.join(root,"build","test","sandboxes",todaystr,"new_sandbox")

The idea of os.path.join() is to make your program cross-platform (linux/windows/etc).

Even one slash ruins it.

So it only makes sense when being used with some kind of a reference point like
os.environ['HOME'] or os.path.dirname(__file__).

os.path.join() can be used in conjunction with os.path.sep to create an absolute rather than relative path.

os.path.join(os.path.sep, 'home','build','test','sandboxes',todaystr,'new_sandbox')

To help understand why this surprising behavior isn’t entirely terrible, consider an application which accepts a config file name as an argument:

config_root = "/etc/myapp.conf/"
file_name = os.path.join(config_root, sys.argv[1])

If the application is executed with:

$ myapp foo.conf

The config file /etc/myapp.conf/foo.conf will be used.

But consider what happens if the application is called with:

$ myapp /some/path/bar.conf

Then myapp should use the config file at /some/path/bar.conf (and not /etc/myapp.conf/some/path/bar.conf or similar).

It may not be great, but I believe this is the motivation for the absolute path behaviour.

To make your function more portable, use it as such:

os.path.join(os.sep, 'home', 'build', 'test', 'sandboxes', todaystr, 'new_sandbox')

or

os.path.join(os.environ.get("HOME"), 'test', 'sandboxes', todaystr, 'new_sandbox')

Note that a similar issue can bite you if you use os.path.join() to include an extension that already includes a dot, which is what happens automatically when you use os.path.splitext(). In this example:

components = os.path.splitext(filename)
prefix = components[0]
extension = components[1]
return os.path.join("avatars", instance.username, prefix, extension)

Even though extension might be .jpg you end up with a folder named “foobar” rather than a file called “foobar.jpg”. To prevent this you need to append the extension separately:

return os.path.join("avatars", instance.username, prefix) + extension

Try combo of split("/") and * for strings with existing joins.

import os

home = '/home/build/test/sandboxes/'
todaystr = '042118'
new = '/new_sandbox/'

os.path.join(*home.split("/"), todaystr, *new.split("/"))

How it works…

split("/") turns existing path into list: ['', 'home', 'build', 'test', 'sandboxes', '']

* in front of the list breaks out each item of list its own parameter

os.path.join("a", *"/b".split(os.sep))
'a/b'

a fuller version:

import os

def join (p, f, sep = os.sep):
    f = os.path.normpath(f)
    if p == "":
        return (f);
    else:
        p = os.path.normpath(p)
        return (os.path.join(p, *f.split(os.sep)))

def test (p, f, sep = os.sep):
    print("os.path.join({}, {}) => {}".format(p, f, os.path.join(p, f)))
    print("        join({}, {}) => {}".format(p, f, join(p, f, sep)))

if __name__ == "__main__":
    # /a/b/c for all
    test("\a\b", "\c", "\") # optionally pass in the sep you are using locally
    test("/a/b", "/c", "/")
    test("/a/b", "c")
    test("/a/b/", "c")
    test("", "/c")
    test("", "c")

you can strip the '/':

>>> os.path.join('/home/build/test/sandboxes/', todaystr, '/new_sandbox/'.strip('/'))
'/home/build/test/sandboxes/04122019/new_sandbox'

I’d recommend to strip from the second and the following strings the string os.path.sep, preventing them to be interpreted as absolute paths:

first_path_str = '/home/build/test/sandboxes/'
original_other_path_to_append_ls = [todaystr, '/new_sandbox/']
other_path_to_append_ls = [
    i_path.strip(os.path.sep) for i_path in original_other_path_to_append_ls
]
output_path = os.path.join(first_path_str, *other_path_to_append_ls)

The problem is your laptop maybe running Window. And Window annoyingly use back lash instead of forward slash’/’.
To make your program cross-platform (linux/windows/etc).
You shouldn’t provide any slashes (forward or backward) in your path if you want os.path.join to handle them properly. you should using:

os.path.join(os.environ.get("HOME"), 'test', 'sandboxes', todaystr, 'new_sandbox')

Or throw some Path(__file__).resolve().parent (path to parent of current file) or anything so that you don’t use any slash inside os.path.join

Please refer following code snippet for understanding os.path.join(a, b)

a = '/home/user.name/foo/'
b = '/bar/file_name.extension'

print(os.path.join(a, b))
>>> /bar/file_name.extension

OR

a = '/home/user.name/foo'
b = '/bar/file_name.extension'
print(os.path.join(a, b))
>>> /bar/file_name.extension

But, when

a = '/home/user.name/foo/'
b = 'bar/file_name.extension'

print(os.path.join(a, b))
>>> /bar/file_name.extension

OR

a = '/home/user.name/foo'
b = 'bar/file_name.extension'
print(os.path.join(a, b))
>>> /home/user.name/foo/bar/file_name.extension