Trouble getting path of top level script file __main__.py

Python Help
1

My main file is this:

/Users/ljh/Documents/helloPy/src/appdir/__main__.py

sys.path[0] return different value when I run the script file with only the dir and without the basename of the file.

I think the reliable way is to always run the script specifying the basename.

print('1', os.path.realpath(sys.argv[0]))
print('2', os.path.realpath(sys.path[0]))

$ python3 appdir
1 /Users/ljh/Documents/helloPy/src/appdir
2 /Users/ljh/Documents/helloPy/src/appdir
$
$ python3 -m appdir
1 /Users/ljh/Documents/helloPy/src/appdir/__main__.py
2 /Users/ljh/Documents/helloPy/src
$
2

I think that the best way to get the directory of the running script is

os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
3

Thanks Steven,

I read some on stackoverflow. some said that abspath does not resolve the symbol link and realpath points to the linked file.

4

Stackoverflow is not the official source of information :slight_smile:

realpath follows symlinks and junction points on Windows since Python 3.8 so it should be fine.

https://docs.python.org/3/library/os.path.html#os.path.realpath