{"id":123598,"date":"2022-04-05T18:41:33","date_gmt":"2022-04-05T18:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.finxter.com\/?p=285454"},"modified":"2022-04-05T18:41:33","modified_gmt":"2022-04-05T18:41:33","slug":"a-simple-guide-to-get-absolute-path-in-python","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2022\/04\/05\/a-simple-guide-to-get-absolute-path-in-python\/","title":{"rendered":"A Simple Guide to Get Absolute Path in Python"},"content":{"rendered":"

What’s the Absolute Path of a File?<\/h2>\n

The absolute path<\/em><\/strong> (i.e., full path<\/em><\/strong>) is just what it sounds like — it’s the exact path to, and location of, the file entered as your function\u2019s parameter, within the hierarchical structure on your machine. <\/p>\n

The absolute path always starts at the root directory with no regard for your current working directory (CWD<\/em>).<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it!  So let\u2019s get into some code.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Import Python Module to Get Absolute Path<\/h2>\n

With more than 200 core modules Python can do amazing things.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

But, this can also make it seem daunting to the beginner.\u00a0 As we go through this one aspect, it should become much more clear to you how you can navigate your way around and find the specific tool for your project.<\/p>\n

I have included some links and examples to help get you started.<\/p>\n

We will be using the built-in os<\/a><\/code> module, so we need to import that first.<\/p>\n

import os<\/pre>\n
We could just write the code for the absolute path here and then dissect the output, but I want to give you a deeper look at what\u2019s available to you in Python.<\/p>\n
In order to get the absolute path in Python, we first check the output of the dir()<\/a><\/code> statement on the os<\/code> module:<\/p>\n
print(dir(os))<\/pre>\n
This simple code will give us the directory for the os<\/code> module.<\/p>\n
Output:<\/p>\n
# Output:\n['DirEntry', 'F_OK', 'MutableMapping', 'O_APPEND', 'O_BINARY', 'O_CREAT', 'O_EXCL', 'O_NOINHERIT', 'O_RANDOM', 'O_RDONLY', 'O_RDWR', 'O_SEQUENTIAL', 'O_SHORT_LIVED', 'O_TEMPORARY', 'O_TEXT', 'O_TRUNC', 'O_WRONLY', 'P_DETACH', 'P_NOWAIT', 'P_NOWAITO', 'P_OVERLAY', 'P_WAIT', 'PathLike', 'R_OK', 'SEEK_CUR', 'SEEK_END', 'SEEK_SET', 'TMP_MAX', 'W_OK', 'X_OK', '_AddedDllDirectory', '_Environ', '__all__', '__builtins__', '__cached__', '__doc__', '__file__', '__loader__', '__name__', '__package__', '__spec__', '_check_methods', '_execvpe', '_exists', '_exit', '_fspath', '_get_exports_list', '_putenv', '_unsetenv', '_wrap_close', 'abc', 'abort', 'access', 'add_dll_directory', 'altsep', 'chdir', 'chmod', 'close', 'closerange', 'cpu_count', 'curdir', 'defpath', 'device_encoding', 'devnull', 'dup', 'dup2', 'environ', 'error', 'execl', 'execle', 'execlp', 'execlpe', 'execv', 'execve', 'execvp', 'execvpe', 'extsep', 'fdopen', 'fsdecode', 'fsencode', 'fspath', 'fstat', 'fsync', 'ftruncate', 'get_exec_path', 'get_handle_inheritable', 'get_inheritable', 'get_terminal_size', 'getcwd', 'getcwdb', 'getenv', 'getlogin', 'getpid', 'getppid', 'isatty', 'kill', 'linesep', 'link', 'listdir', 'lseek', 'lstat', 'makedirs', 'mkdir', 'name', 'open', 'pardir', 'path', 'pathsep', 'pipe', 'popen', 'putenv', 'read', 'readlink', 'remove', 'removedirs', 'rename', 'renames', 'replace', 'rmdir', 'scandir', 'sep', 'set_handle_inheritable', 'set_inheritable', 'spawnl', 'spawnle', 'spawnv', 'spawnve', 'st', 'startfile', 'stat', 'stat_result', 'statvfs_result', 'strerror', 'supports_bytes_environ', 'supports_dir_fd', 'supports_effective_ids', 'supports_fd', 'supports_follow_symlinks', 'symlink', 'sys', 'system', 'terminal_size', 'times', 'times_result', 'truncate', 'umask', 'uname_result', 'unlink', 'urandom', 'utime', 'waitpid', 'walk', 'write']<\/pre>\n
You can see that it gives us a list of ALL the sub-modules and methods available to us.\u00a0The 'path'<\/code> sub-module in the output is the one we use to get the absolute path next.<\/p>\n
Next, we combine the os<\/code> module and the path<\/code> sub-module to get a directory of the methods and functions we have available.<\/p>\n
print(dir(os.path)) # os + .path <\/pre>\n
(If you are very new to Python, the hash in front of the highlighted section creates a comment)<\/p>\n
Output:<\/p>\n
# Output:\n['__all__', '__builtins__', '__cached__', '__doc__', '__file__', '__loader__', '__name__', '__package__', '__spec__', '_abspath_fallback', '_get_bothseps', '_getfinalpathname', '_getfinalpathname_nonstrict', '_getfullpathname', '_getvolumepathname', '_nt_readlink', '_readlink_deep', 'abspath', 'altsep', 'basename', 'commonpath', 'commonprefix', 'curdir', 'defpath', 'devnull', 'dirname', 'exists', 'expanduser', 'expandvars', 'extsep', 'genericpath', 'getatime', 'getctime', 'getmtime', 'getsize', 'isabs', 'isdir', 'isfile', 'islink', 'ismount', 'join', 'lexists', 'normcase', 'normpath', 'os', 'pardir', 'pathsep', 'realpath', 'relpath', 'samefile', 'sameopenfile', 'samestat', 'sep', 'split', 'splitdrive', 'splitext', 'stat', 'supports_unicode_filenames', 'sys']<\/pre>\n
It gives us another list<\/a> of Python tools, and I want to highlight the string name abspath<\/code>.\u00a0 Can you see how we are building the code as we go?<\/p>\n
\"\ud83d\udca1\" Hint<\/strong>: os + .path + .abspath<\/code><\/p>\n
If you want more information on any one of these tools for the os module you can find it HERE.<\/a><\/p>\n
Now, let\u2019s get to the absolute path<\/p>\n
<\/a>Using the abspath() Function<\/h2>\n
\"\ud83d\udca1\" To get the absolute path of a filename<\/code> in Python, use the os.path.abspath(filename)<\/code> function call. <\/p>\n
I have included all of the code here with the filename entered as the parameter in the abspath()<\/code> method.<\/p>\n
import os\nos.path.abspath('Demo_abspath') # Enter file name as a string\n<\/pre>\n
For a comprehensive tutorial on string data types, check out this video: <\/strong><\/p>\n
\n
\n