Python joining current directory and parent directory with os.path.join

python os.path
Lewistrick picture Lewistrick · Jun 25, 2013 · Viewed 52.8k times · Source

I want to do join the current directory path and a relative directory path goal_dir somewhere up in the directory tree, so I get the absolute path to the goal_dir. This is my attempt:

import os
goal_dir = os.path.join(os.getcwd(), "../../my_dir")

Now, if the current directory is C:/here/I/am/, it joins them as C:/here/I/am/../../my_dir, but what I want is C:/here/my_dir. It seems that os.path.join is not that intelligent.

How can I do this?

Answer

alecxe picture alecxe · Jun 25, 2013

You can use normpath, realpath or abspath:

import os
goal_dir = os.path.join(os.getcwd(), "../../my_dir")
print goal_dir  # prints C:/here/I/am/../../my_dir
print os.path.normpath(goal_dir)  # prints C:/here/my_dir
print os.path.realpath(goal_dir)  # prints C:/here/my_dir
print os.path.abspath(goal_dir)  # prints C:/here/my_dir

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