[Tutor] where to put data files

[Paul Tremblay]

I have a script that needs to read from a data file, and I want to know
the best location for the data file.

Right now, I have this line in my setup.py:

            data_files=[('data', ['char_set'])],

This means that in a normal installation, the setup scipt will make a
directory /usr/local/data, and put the char_set file there.

The file consits of encoding schemes. 

Would it be better to put the data in /etc? 

Also, should I use a relative path? I guess if I use a relative path,
then each time the script runs, it will have to check for the location
of the data directoy:

path = sys.path
char_dir = ""
found_char_dir =0
for dir in path:
   data_dir = os.join (dir, "data")
   if isdir(data_dir):
      char_dir = data_dir
      found_char_dir=1
      last
if not found_char_dir:
     print "no character data found. Scipt will not exit"
     sys.exit(1)
      ## code untested ! this is just to illustrate what I mean

I'm looking for the most standard place for such a data file, a place
that will work on different operating systems.

Thanks

Paul

PS Thanks for the pointers and links in making a setup.py script.
Python's documentatin was pretty decent, and after only 2 or 3 hours, I
had a nice script written that worked perfectly. Nice.


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*Paul Tremblay         *
*phthenry@earthlink.net*
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