How to properly determine current script directory in Python?

Question

I would like to see what is best way to determine current script directory in python?

I discovered that two to the many ways of calling python code, it is hard to find a good solution.

Here are some problems:

• __file__ is not defined if the script is executed with exec, execfile
• __module__ is defined only in modules

Use cases:

• ./myfile.py
• python myfile.py
• ./somedir/myfile.py
• python somedir/myfile.py
• exec('myfile.py') (from another script, that can be located in another directory and that can have another current directory.

I know that there is no perfect solution, because in some cases but I'm looking for the best approach that solved most of the cases.

The most used approach is os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)) but this is really doesn't work if you execute the script from another one with exec().

Answer 1

Would

import os
cwd = os.getcwd()

do what you want? I'm not sure what exactly you mean by the "current script directory". What would the expected output be for the use cases you gave?

Answer 2

os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))

is indeed the best you're going to get.

It's unusual to be executing a script with exec/execfile; normally you should be using the module infrastructure to load scripts. If you must use these methods, I suggest setting __file__ in the globals you pass to the script so it can read that filename.

There's no other way to get the filename in execed code: as you note, the CWD may be in a completely different place.