python – what does the __file__ variable mean/do?
python – what does the __file__ variable mean/do?
When a module is loaded from a file in Python, __file__ is set to its path. You can then use that with other functions to find the directory that the file is located in.
Taking your examples one at a time:
A = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), ..)
# A is the parent directory of the directory where program resides.
B = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))
# B is the canonicalised (?) directory where the program resides.
C = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
# C is the absolute path of the directory where the program resides.
You can see the various values returned from these here:
import os
print(__file__)
print(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), ..))
print(os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__)))
print(os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__)))
and make sure you run it from different locations (such as ./text.py, ~/python/text.py and so forth) to see what difference that makes.
I just want to address some confusion first. __file__ is not a wildcard it is an attribute. Double underscore attributes and methods are considered to be special by convention and serve a special purpose.
http://docs.python.org/reference/datamodel.html shows many of the special methods and attributes, if not all of them.
In this case __file__ is an attribute of a module (a module object). In Python a .py file is a module. So import amodule will have an attribute of __file__ which means different things under difference circumstances.
Taken from the docs:
__file__is the pathname of the file from which the module was loaded, if it was loaded from a file. The__file__attribute is not present
for C modules that are statically linked into the interpreter; for
extension modules loaded dynamically from a shared library, it is the
pathname of the shared library file.
In your case the module is accessing its own __file__ attribute in the global namespace.
To see this in action try:
# file: test.py
print globals()
print __file__
And run:
python test.py
{__builtins__: <module __builtin__ (built-in)>, __name__: __main__, __file__:
test_print__file__.py, __doc__: None, __package__: None}
test_print__file__.py
python – what does the __file__ variable mean/do?
Per the documentation:
__file__is the pathname of the file from which the module was
loaded, if it was loaded from a file. The__file__attribute is not
present for C modules that are statically linked into the interpreter;
for extension modules loaded dynamically from a shared library, it is
the pathname of the shared library file.
and also:
__file__is to be the “path” to the file unless the module is built-in (and thus listed insys.builtin_module_names) in which case the attribute is not set.