Question

I have external data input that I use in my python scripts (in fact an excel file as a template). This external file is specific to the version of the script that I check in to SVN. So I suppose I should check in the external file as well?

How would you manage that the script finds the file (I use Windows)? A relative path to the current directory? Checking sys.path paths manually? Some parameter given to the script which specifies the root directory of relative path accesses?

Answer 1

A common idiom for finding data files is this:

my_dir = os.path.dirname(sys.argv[0])
data_file_path = os.path.join(my_dir, data_filename)

So if your script lives in /some/path/script.py, and data_filename is myfile, this will correctly find /some/path/myfile when your script is executed.

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This works on Windows as well as Linux