How do you get the exact path to "My Documents"?

Question

In C++ it's not too hard to get the full pathname to the folder that the shell calls "My Documents" in Windows XP and Windows 7 and "Documents" in Vista; see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2414828/get-path-to-my-documents

Is there a simple way to do this in Python?

Answer 1

I don't recall the exact 'getenv' format, but the variable you're looking for is USERPROFILE to which you can append /My Documents or /Documents as necessary. Since this query is specific to Windows, ascertaining the appropriate version should be trivial.

(after a quick search) it seems to be

import os
mydocuments = os.getenv('USERPROFILE') + '/My Documents'

Note that HOMEPATH may also work (see first comment to your original query)

[edit]
also note that os.path.expanduser('~') returns the \Documents and Settings\username directory under windows, unix and mac osx (but not mac os) making it far more convenient when you move to another os/architecture
[/edit]

Why the downvotes, BTW? Since the first comment does not appear to be valid, is it only because of the miss between 'My Documents' and 'Documents'?

Answer 2

I am not sure if this would work in Windows, but this is how I do it in UNIX -

from os.path import abspath
abspath(".")

This gives the absolute path of the current directory. See what happens when you give r'My\ Documents' as the dirname.

Answer 3

You could use the ctypes module to get the "My Documents" directory:

import ctypes

dll = ctypes.windll.shell32
buf = ctypes.create_unicode_buffer(300)
dll.SHGetSpecialFolderPathW(None, buf, 0x0005, False)
print(buf.value)

Source: http://bugs.python.org/issue1763#msg62242