Open File in Same Directory as Python Script

In Python, it is a common scenario that the files we want to work with should be placed in the same folder as the script itself. Simply we with the reference of a filename like "data.txt" may not always work as expected, especially when the script is executed from a different working directory.

The best way is to place the scripts in the actual location using the __file__ variable along with the os or pathlib modules. In this article, we are going to see the different approaches to open a file in the same directory as a Python script.

Using the os Module

The os module offers different tools for interacting with the filesystem in a platform-independent way. We have the methods os.path.dirname() and os.path.join() in which we can use to get the absolute path to the directory and to make the script reside in the same directory.

Example

In this example, we are going to learn how to open a file in the working directory as a Python script using the os module with the help of methods such as dirname() and join() -

import os

# Locate the folder where the script is stored
base_dir = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))

# Combine folder path with the target file name
file_path = os.path.join(base_dir, 'file1.txt')

# Read the file content
with open(file_path, 'r') as f:
   data = f.read()
   print(data)

Following is the output of the above program -

Hello, welcome to Tutorialspoint.
Have a happy learning.

Using Pathlib Module

The pathlib module is introduced in Python 3.4 version, which offers object oriented approach for handling file system paths. In this module, we have the __file__ attribute to work with files in the same directory.

Example

Here in this example, we are going to show how to open a file in the same directory as a Python script using the pathlib module -

from pathlib import Path

# Get the current script's folder
base_dir = Path(__file__).parent

# Form the complete file path
file_path = base_dir / 'file1.txt'

# Open and display the file contents
with file_path.open('r') as f:
   data = f.read()
   print(data)

Here is the output of the above program -

Hello, welcome to Tutorialspoint.
Have a happy learning.

Note: When we use environments such as Jupyter Notebooks or interactive shells, then the __file__ variable isn't available. In such cases, we can use the current working directory using os.getcwd() method.

Following is the example, which shows how to use the method os.getcwd() -

import os

# Use the current directory as fallback
base_dir = os.getcwd()
file_path = os.path.join(base_dir, 'file1.txt')

# Open and read the file
with open(file_path, 'r') as f:
    print(f.read())

Below is the output of the above program -

Hello, welcome to Tutorialspoint.
Have a happy learning.