Question

I’m setting up my first cron job and it’s not working. I think the problem may be a relative path issue.

Given cron job:

*/1 * * * * python2.7 /home/path/to/my/script/my_script.py

and my_script.py:

import sqlite3
db = sqlite3.connect('my_db.db')
cur = db.cursor()
...

How do I make sure that my_script.py looks for my_db.db in /home/path/to/my/script/ (the same directory that houses my_script.py) and not whatever directory crontab lives?

Other suggestions for troubleshooting are also welcome.

Note – I think the issue may be a path issue because when I try running my_script.py using python2.7 /home/path/to/my/script/my_script.py from any location other than /home/path/to/my/script/, I get an “unable to open database” error.

Answer 1

import sqlite3
import os

dir_path = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))

db = sqlite3.connect(os.path.join(dir_path, 'my_db.db'))
cur = db.cursor()
...

Remember that Python’s os.path module is your best friend when manipulating paths.