TLDR: I want to change the working directory of my script to the script file's location(instead of system32) when i run it by double clicking on it.
I have a really annoying problem I couldn't solve. I am building a python script that will take 4 text files as input and create some graphs and an excel sheet using these text files. I am going to pass my script to a friend who will copy this script into different folders and execute the script in those folders by just double-clicking on the script. The problem I am facing is when I execute my code out of cmd everything works fine. But if I double click on it, the directory my code is working changes automatically, and my program can't find the required 4 text files. I am attaching the required parts of my code below and also attaching some screenshots.
ss1
ss2
def fileOpenCheckLoad(fname):
pl=list()
try:
fh=open(fname)
except:
print("ERROR:"+ fname +" is missing. Execution will terminate.")
x=input("Press enter to quit.")
quit()
test1=fh.readline()
test2=fh.readline()
if test1[6]!=fname[5] and test2!='t x y\n' :
print("ERROR: Check the contents of:"+ fname)
x=input("Press enter to quit.")
quit()
count=0
for lines in fh:
count=count+1
if count>2 :
nums=lines.split()
pl.append((float(nums[2]), float(nums[2])))
tbr=(pl,count-2)
return tbr
# main starts here.
cwd = os.getcwd()
print(cwd)
# In this part we open and load files into the memory. If there is an error we terminate.
(pl1, count1)=fileOpenCheckLoad('point1.txt')
(pl2, count2)=fileOpenCheckLoad('point2.txt')
(pl3, count3)=fileOpenCheckLoad('point3.txt')
(pl4, count4)=fileOpenCheckLoad('point4.txt')
Before calling os.getcwd(), insert this line:
os.chdir(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
Explanation
__file__ is a special variable in Python; as described here, "__file__ is the pathname of the file from which the module was loaded"
os.path.abspath returns the absolute path to the input file or directory (I included this because depending on how you load up a Python file, sometimes __file__ will be stored as a relative path, and absolute paths tend to be safer to work with)
os.path.dirname returns the name of the directory which contains the input file (because chdir will return an error if we give it the name of a file, so we need to give it the name of the directory which contains the file)
os.chdir changes the working directory
Related
I am getting this error sometimes when working on mac in Processing for Python. Seemingly for no reason, sometimes the current working directory becomes what you see in the image while other times it is the working directory of the folder the pyde file is in as it should be.
Any ideas on why this is occurring?
It's to avoid problems like these that I always try to use absolute paths. I would suggest you try something like this for file paths:
import os
# This will be the path to your .py file
FILE_PATH = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
# This will be the path to your text file, if it is in the same directory as the .py
LEVELS_FILE_PATH = os.path.join(FILE_PATH, "levels.txt")
Then, instead of your current open statement you could have:
f = open(LEVELS_FILE_PATH, 'r')
I have 2 directories. I had a python program located in dir_1 writing to a .txt file also in dir_1. I meant to create them in dir_2, but when I move them both to dir_2, the python program, instead of writing to the existing .txt file that is now with it in dir_2, creates a new .txt file in dir_1 and writes to it. How do I fix this? I'm very new to programming and python and googling didn't help me out, probably because I didn't know what exactly to search.
with open('guest_book.txt', 'w') as file:
while True:
name = input('Please enter your name: ')
if name == 'q':
break
else:
print(f"Hello, {name.title()}!\nYou have been added to the guest"
f"book")
file.write(f"{name.title()}\n")
Python writes to the file location you supply it with. If this file location is a relative path, then it will create files relative to the directory of the script. I.e. when you move the script then the .txt file will be created relative to the new directiory.
On the other hand, if you provide an absolute path, then it does not matter where the script is located / where you execute it from. Instead, it will create the file at that location always.
From the sounds of it, you are using an absolute path when you want a relative path.
So change from something like /home/bob/file.txt (Linux) or C:\\Users\Bob\file.txt (Win) to simply file.txt or even ./file.txt.
Update: Since you were using a relative location all along, the problem will lie with the context that you are executing the script from. Your code is not the issue here, it is how you are executing it.
As vlovero suggests, maybe your IDE is not executing the new file in its new location?
One way you can test this robustly is to navigate to dir_2 in a terminal and run
python your_program_name.py
This will execute the script in the dir_2 location.
Since you have not specified an absolute path, your program is then specifying a directory relative to the current working directory (if instead, for example, you had specified a path such as '../guest_book.txt', you would have been specifying a directory one level above the current working directory). So let's imagine your OS is Linux and the Python program resides in /my_home/programs:
cd /my_home/data # this is the current working directory
python ../programs/your_program.py
The current working directory when the program is executed is /home/my_home/data even though the program being executed resides in /my_home/programs, and thus the output file will be created in the /my_home/data directory. os.getcwd() can be called to tell you what the current working directory is.
My code below, Python can't read my file:
f = open('./resource/review.txt','r')
The error is as in photo: Errno 2: No such file in directory.
You can try \ instead of /
f = open('.\\resource\\review.txt','r')
content = f.read()
print(content)
Because the file is not located at the same folder as your script you need to go back one folder.
In order to do that tou need '..' (double dot) and not one, this will indicate to go back a folder relative to the current path.
The message Errno 2: No such file in directory simply means that your relative pathname to your file cannot be found in the directory in which you're executing (which might not be the directory the Python script is in or that you think you're in, if you're using an IDE).
So to see what directory your Python is actually running in, do:
print(f'current directory is: {os.getcwd()}')
I am working on the listener portion of a backdoor program (for an ETHICAL hacking course) and I would like to be able to read files from any part of my linux system and not just from within the directory where my listener python script is located - however, this has not proven to be as simple as specifying a typical absolute path such as "~/Desktop/test.txt"
So far my code is able to read files and upload them to the virtual machine where my reverse backdoor script is actively running. But this is only when I read and upload files that are in the same directory as my listener script (aptly named listener.py). Code shown below.
def read_file(self, path):
with open(path, "rb") as file:
return base64.b64encode(file.read())
As I've mentioned previously, the above function only works if I try to open and read a file that is in the same directory as the script that the above code belongs to, meaning that path in the above content is a simple file name such as "picture.jpg"
I would like to be able to read a file from any part of my filesystem while maintaining the same functionality.
For example, I would love to be able to specify "~/Desktop/another_picture.jpg" as the path so that the contents of "another_picture.jpg" from my "~/Desktop" directory are base64 encoded for further processing and eventual upload.
Any and all help is much appreciated.
Edit 1:
My script where all the code is contained, "listener.py", is located in /root/PycharmProjects/virus_related/reverse_backdoor/. within this directory is a file that for simplicity's sake we can call "picture.jpg" The same file, "picture.jpg" is also located on my desktop, absolute path = "/root/Desktop/picture.jpg"
When I try read_file("picture.jpg"), there are no problems, the file is read.
When I try read_file("/root/Desktop/picture.jpg"), the file is not read and my terminal becomes stuck.
Edit 2:
I forgot to note that I am using the latest version of Kali Linux and Pycharm.
I have run "realpath picture.jpg" and it has yielded the path "/root/Desktop/picture.jpg"
Upon running read_file("/root/Desktop/picture.jpg"), I encounter the same problem where my terminal becomes stuck.
[FINAL EDIT aka Problem solved]:
Based on the answer suggesting trying to read a file like "../file", I realized that the code was fully functional because read_file("../file") worked without any flaws, indicating that my python script had no trouble locating the given path. Once the file was read, it was uploaded to the machine running my backdoor where, curiously, it uploaded the file to my target machine but in the parent directory of the script. It was then that I realized that problem lied in the handling of paths in the backdoor script rather than my listener.py
Credit is also due to the commentator who pointed out that "~" does not count as a valid path element. Once I reached the conclusion mentioned just above, I attempted read_file("~/Desktop/picture.jpg") which failed. But with a quick modification, read_file("/root/Desktop/picture.jpg") was successfully executed and the file was uploaded in the same directory as my backdoor script on my target machine once I implemented some quick-fix code.
My apologies for not being so specific; efforts to aid were certainly confounded by the unmentioned complexity of my situation and I would like to personally thank everyone who chipped in.
This was my first whole-hearted attempt to reach out to the stackoverflow community for help and I have not been disappointed. Cheers!
A solution I found is putting "../" before the filename if the path is right outside of the dictionary.
test.py (in some dictionary right inside dictionary "Desktop" (i.e. /Desktop/test):
with open("../test.txt", "r") as test:
print(test.readlines())
test.txt (in dictionary "/Desktop")
Hi!
Hello!
Result:
["Hi!", "Hello!"]
This is likely the simplest solution. I found this solution because I always use "cd ../" on the terminal.
This not only allows you to modify the current file, but all other files in the same directory as the one you are reading/writing to.
path = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
dir_ = os.listdir(path)
for filename in dir_:
f = open(dir_ + '/' + filename)
content = f.read()
print filename, len(content)
try:
im = Image.open(filename)
im.show()
except IOError:
print('The following file is not an image type:', filename)
I am making a python program, and I want to check if it is the users first time running the program (firstTime == True). After its ran however, I want to permanently change firstTime to False. (There are other variables that I want to take input for that will stay if it is the first run, but that should be solved the same way).
Is there a better way then just reading from a file that contains the data? If not, how can I find where the file is being ran from (so the data will be in the same dir)?
If you want to persist data, it will "eventually" be to disk files (though there might be intermediate steps, e.g. via a network or database system, eventually if the data is to be persistent it will be somewhere in disk files).
To "find out where you are",
import os
print os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
There are variants, but this is the basic idea. __file__ in any .py script or module gives the file path in which that file resides (won't work on the interactive command line, of course, since there's no file involved then;-).
The os.path module in Python's standard library has many useful function to manipulate path strings -- here, we're using two: abspath to give an absolute (not relative) version of the file's path, so you don't have to care about what your current working directory is; and dirname to extract just the directory name (actually, the whole directory path;-) and drop the filename proper (you don't care if the module's name is foo.py or bar.py, only in what directory it is;-).
It is enough to just create file in same directory if program is run first time (of course that file can be deleted to do stuff for first run again, but that can be sometimes usefull):
firstrunfile = 'config.dat'
if not os.path.exists(firstrunfile):
## configuration here
open(firstrunfile,'w').close() ## .write(configuration)
print 'First run'
firstTime == True
else:
print 'Not first run'
## read configuration
firstTime == False