Relative paths break when executing Python script from Windows batch?

batch-file, python, relative-path, windows

Solution

Yes, that is logical. The files are relative to your working directory. You change that by running the script from a different directory. What you could do is take the directory of the script you are running at run time and build from that.

import os

def read_file(filename):
    #get the directory of the current running script. "__file__" is its full path
    path, fl = os.path.split(os.path.realpath(__file__))
    #use path to create the fully classified path to your data
    full_path = os.path.join(path, filename)
    with open(full_path, "r") as file:
       #etc

Problem

My Python script works perfectly if I execute it directly from the directory it's located in. However if I back out of that directory and try to execute it from somewhere else (without changing any code or file locations), all the relative paths break and I get a `FileNotFoundError`. The script is located at `./scripts/bin/my_script.py`. There is a directory called `./scripts/bin/data/`. Like I said, it works absolutely perfectly as long as I execute it from the same directory... so I'm very confused. Successful Execution (in `./scripts/bin/`): `python my_script.py` Failed Execution (in `./scripts/`): Both `python bin/my_script.py` and `python ./bin/my_script.py` Failure Message: ``` Traceback (most recent call last): File "./bin/my_script.py", line 87, in <module> run() File "./bin/my_script.py", line 61, in run load_data() File "C:\Users\XXXX\Desktop\scripts\bin\tables.py", line 12, in load_data DATA = read_file("data/my_data.txt") File "C:\Users\XXXX\Desktop\scripts\bin\fileutil.py", line 5, in read_file with open(filename, "r") as file: FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'data/my_data.txt' ``` Relevant Python Code: ``` def read_file(filename): with open(filename, "r") as file: lines = [line.strip() for line in file] return [line for line in lines if len(line) == 0 or line[0] != "#"] def load_data(): global DATA DATA = read_file("data/my_data.txt") ```

Original source