Find "home directory" in Python?

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How to find the real user home directory using python?
How to get the home directory in Python?

I want to access /home/weasel to read some files from there but I don't want to write the full path of course - so other users can use the script.. how do you know your username or your home dir with python on Linux?

Thanks

Possible duplicate: http://stackoverflow.com/q/2668909/777186 — jogojapan, Apr 16 '12 at 07:56
Should anyone just want the home directory rather than the user directory, you might try finding the user directory (`ud`) and doing this: `hd=os.sep.join(ud.split(os.sep)[:-1])` — Brōtsyorfuzthrāx, Oct 28 '16 at 09:29

score 142 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 07 '17 at 20:04

142

To get the homedir in python, you can use os.path.expanduser('~').

This also works if it's part of a longer path, such as os.path.expanduser('~/some/directory/file.txt'). If there is no ~ in the path, the function will return the path unchanged.

So depending on what you want to do it's better than reading os.environ['HOME']

The username is available through getpass.getuser()

edited Jun 07 '17 at 20:04

Stan James

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answered Apr 16 '12 at 07:54

ThiefMaster

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`os.environ['HOME']` seems more intuitive for me, because I often use `$HOME` in Linux. But could you point out some use cases where using `expanduser` might be more preferable? – flow2k Sep 25 '19 at 21:12

score 26 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 16 '12 at 07:55

26

The portable way of getting the home directory in Python is using os.path.expanduser('~').

answered Apr 16 '12 at 07:55

Michael Wild

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Find "home directory" in Python?

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