With PEP 562, the name __dir__ is off limits for this. Cody On Sun, May 6, 2018, 1:54 AM Yuval Greenfield <ubershmekel@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Ideas,
I often need to reference a script's current directory. I end up writing:
import os SRC_DIR = os.path.dirname(__file__)
But I would prefer to have a new dunder for that. I propose: "__dir__". I was wondering if others would find it convenient to include such a shortcut.
Here are some examples of dirname(__file__) in prominent projects.
https://github.com/tensorflow/models/search?l=Python&q=dirname&type= https://github.com/django/django/search?l=Python&q=dirname&type= https://github.com/nose-devs/nose/search?l=Python&q=dirname&type=
Reasons not to add __dir__: * There already is one way to do it and it's clear and fairly short. * Avoid the bikeshed discussion of __dir__, __folder__, and other candidates.
Reasons to add it: * os.path.dirname(__file__) returns the empty string when you're in the same directory as the script. Luckily, os.path.join understands an empty string as a ".", but this still is suboptimal for logging where it might be surprising to find the empty string. __dir__ could be implemented to contain a "." in that case. * I would save about 20 characters and a line from 50% of my python scripts. * This is such a common construct that everyone giving it their own name seems suboptimal for communicating. Common names include: here, path, dirname, module_dir.
Cheers,
Yuval Greenfield
P.s. nodejs has it - https://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/modules.html#modules_dirname also I apologize if this has been suggested before - my googling didn't find a previous thread.
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