
Question:
I am working with a Macbook programming python. What I want to know is how I can access certain files using Python's file functions. A google search failed me.
For example, Windows would be something like this:
f = open(r'C:\text\somefile.txt')
How would I access something from a folder saved on the Desktop of a Mac?
Solution:1
The desktop is just a subdirectory of the userâs home directory. Because the latter is not fixed, use something like os.path.expanduser
to keep the code generic. For example, to read a file called somefile.txt
that resides on the desktop, use
import os f = open(os.path.expanduser("~/Desktop/somefile.txt"))
If you want this to be portable across operating systems, you have to find out where the desktop directory is located on each system separately.
Solution:2
f = open (r"/Users/USERNAME/Desktop/somedir/somefile.txt")
or even better
import os f = open (os.path.expanduser("~/Desktop/somedir/somefile.txt"))
Because on bash (the default shell on Mac Os X) ~/
represents the user's home directory.
Solution:3
You're working on a Mac so paths like "a/b/c.text"
are fine, but if you use Windows in the future, you'll have to change all the '/'
to '\'
. If you want to be more portable and platform-agnostic from the beginning, you better use the os.path.join
operator:
import os desktop = os.path.join(os.path.expanduser("~"), "Desktop") filePath = os.path.join(desktop, "somefile.txt") f = open(filePath)
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