strange interaction between open and cwd

[Baz Walter]

On 03/05/10 14:46, Peter Otten wrote:
> Baz Walter wrote:
>
>> attempting to remove the cwd would produce an error). but how can python
>> determine the parent directory of a directory that no longer exists?
>
> My tentative explanation would be that the directory, namely the inode,
> still exists -- only the entry for it in its parent directory is gone.
>
> So "one level up from here" is still a valid operation, but there is no
> longer a path in the file system associated with "here".

so "here" must always be available somehow, even if getcwd() fails 
(something like the environment variable $PWD). shame that 
os.getenv('PWD') isn't reliable, as it would solve my issue :(