python - os.makedirs don't understand ~ in my path?

Question

Hi

I have a little problem with ~ in my paths.

This code example creates some dirs called "~/some_dir", and do not understand that I wanted to create some_dir in my home dir.

my_dir = "~/some_dir"
if not os.path.exists(my_dir):
    os.makedirs(my_dir)

Note this is on a linux based system.

Thanks Johan

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Solution:

Thanks all, if I added the line SilentGhost and ddaa suggested it works as you would expect it to.

my_dir = "~/some_dir"
my_dir = os.path.expanduser(my_dir)
if not os.path.exists(my_dir):
    os.makedirs(my_dir)

Answer 1

you need to expand the tilde manually:

my_dir = os.path.expanduser('~/some_dir')

Answer 2

That's probably because Python is not Bash and doesn't follow same conventions. You may use this:

homedir = os.path.expanduser('~')

Answer 3

The conversion of ~/some_dir to $HOME/some_dir is called tilde expansion and is a common user interface feature. The file system does not know anything about it.

In Python, this feature is implemented by os.path.expanduser:

my_dir = os.path.expanduser("~/some_dir")