Question

I have a python script that is trying to create a directory tree dynamically depending on the user input. This is what my code looks like so far.

if make_directories:
   os.makedirs(outer_dir)
   os.chdir(outer_dir)
   for car in cars:
       os.makedirs(car)
       os.chdir(car)
       #create a bunch of text files and do other stuff, 
       os.chdir('../')
   os.chdir('../')

I was wondering if there was a better way to do this? I don’t know if this is bad convention to keep changing directories like this.

Note: Cars is a list of car names that the user provides, outer_dir is a directory name that is also provided by the user

Answer 1

I tend to do path manipulations rather than changing directories; just because the current directory is a bit of “implied state” whereas the paths can be explicity rooted.

if make_directories:
    for car in cars:
        carpath = os.path.join(outer_dir, car)
        os.makedirs(carpath)
        for fn in textfiles:
            filepath = os.path.join(carpath, fn)
            #... use filepath ...