Question

In Python, how can I get the effect of cd - in the shell? That is, after changing the working directory, how can I set it back to what it was before that change?

Answer 1

You’re looking to change the working directory? The OS module in python has a lot of functions to help with this.

import os
os.chdir( path )

path being ".." to go up one directory. If you need to check where you are before/after a change of directory you can issue the getcwd() command:

mycwd = os.getcwd()
os.chdir("..")
#do stuff in parent directory
os.chdir(mycwd)     # go back where you came from