os.path.exists not accepting variable input

Question

Whenever I call os.path.exists(variable) it will return false but if I call os.path.exists('/this/is/my/path') it will return true.

import os
import sys

test = None
print("Test directory")
test= sys.stdin.readline()
test.strip('\n')
print(os.path.exists(test))

I know that os.path.exists can return false if there is a permissions error but the directories I reference have no restrictions. Sometimes my paths have spaces in them. I have tries passing the path as both '/this\ is/my/path' and '/this is/my/path with the same results.

Answer 1

You have to do

test = test.strip("\n")

Strings are immutable, so strip() returns a new string.

(At least your code works for me then, if it is still not working for you, it must be something else.)

Answer 2

strip() does not modify the string, it returns a new string. Try this:

import os
import sys
sys.stdout.write("Test directory: ")
test = sys.stdin.readline().strip('\n')
sys.stdout.write(str(os.path.exists(test)) + "\n")

(I'm using sys.stdout.write() instead of print() for Python-3 agnosticity.)

Answer 3

Hi, what you would have to do is either:

test = test.strip('\n')

or

print(os.path.exists(test.strip('\n'))

for what they said above, strip() returns a new string so in order for test to have the new string you must reassign it to it. (or in the second case use the new string straight in path.exists())