How to make an "always relative to current module" file path?
The solution is to use __file__
and it's pretty clean:
import osTEST_FILENAME = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), 'test.txt')
For normal modules loaded from .py
files, the __file__
should be present and usable. To join the information from __file__
onto your relative path, there's a newer option than os.path
interfaces available since 2014:
from pathlib import Pathhere = Path(__file__).parentfname = here/'test.txt'with fname.open() as f: ...
pathlib
was added to Python in 3.4 - see PEP428. For users still on Python 2.7 wanting to use the same APIs, a backport is available.
Users interested to apply the most modern approaches available should consider moving to importlib-resources rather than joining data files relative to the source tree. Currently, few users have the luxury of restricting compatibility to Python 3.7+ only, so I mention this as a heads-up to those who like to be at the cutting edge.