How to check if a path is absolute path or relative path in cross platform way with Python?

Question

UNIX absolute path starts with '/', whereas Windows starts with alphabet 'C:' or '\'. Does python has a standard function to check if a path is absolute or relative? Or do I have to come up with a function using regular expression?

Answer 1

Use os.path.isabs.

Answer 2

os.path.isabs returns True if the path is absolute, False if not. The documentation says it works in windows (I can confirm it works in Linux personally).

os.path.isabs(my_path)

Answer 3

The os.path module will have everything you need.

Answer 4

import os.path

os.path.isabs('\home\user')
True

os.path.isabs('user')
False

Answer 5

And if what you really want is the absolute path, don't bother checking to see if it is, just get the abspath:

import os

print os.path.abspath('.')