What is the correct way to write a file path, to access a document in a folder on your computer

Question

I keep getting errors, that the file doesn't exist. This is the first time im doing this and cant find a sufficient answer on google.

the file is stored in a folder with the name : "maths", the documents name is "Data.txt"

the code ive written to read the content is:

def read(data):
    try:
        count=0
        INFILE=open("maths\\Data.txt","r")
        for line in INFILE:
            rawdata.append(line.rstrip())
            count+=1
        INFILE.close()
        return count
    except:
        print("File could not be found")
        return(count)
        exit()

The file path must be specified relative to from where you run the script. — mkrieger1, Jun 06 '20 at 15:03
Big +1 to @AnnZen. The code has a lot of lines in a catch-all `try`... `except`, and it could be hiding a lot of different potential sources of error. It is a bad idea to use exception handling in this way; one should catch the specific exception relating to expected error conditions only (e.g. `except OSError:`). — alani, Jun 06 '20 at 15:07
As you're using a relative path, it might be worth doing `print(os.getcwd())` to check what current directory the script is using (you'll need to `import os`). — alani, Jun 06 '20 at 15:13

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 18 '20 at 12:33

One sure fire way is to list the whole path of the text file.

Assuming the folder is in Desktop, and the User name of you pc is User1:

def read(data):
    try:
        count=0
        INFILE=open("C:\\Users\\User1\\Usermaths\\Data.txt","r")
        for line in INFILE:
            rawdata.append(line.rstrip())
            count+=1
        INFILE.close()
        return count
    except Exception as e:
        print(e)
        return(count)
        exit()

What is the correct way to write a file path, to access a document in a folder on your computer

1 Answers1