[Tutor] code works in windows command but not ubuntu terminal

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Fri, Jan 24, 2014 at 04:31:49PM -0500, Keith Winston wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 24, 2014 at 4:50 AM, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:
> > Python does not use a search path for the open() function, only for
> > imports. With open(), it uses a simple rule:
> >
> > - absolute paths will look only in that exact location;
> >
> > - relative paths are always relative to the current working directory.
> >
> > Do you know the difference between absolute and relative paths?
> 
> Ah! I was just running into this... I did not know that. So there's no
> way to get it to search a path (other than coding some string
> concatenation of path names or something, of course) to open a file?

Of course there is -- you just have to program it yourself!

First, decide whether the filename is absolute or relative. Absolute 
filenames should not search the path. Then, if it is relative, loop over 
your "open path list" like this:


for prefix in open_path_list:
    location = os.path.join(prefix, filename)
    try:
        f = open(location)
    except IOError:
        pass
    else:
        break


However, there's more to it than this. For starters, you need to decide 
on the exact behaviour. Clearly, "file not found" errors should move on 
to try the next prefix in the path list. But what about permission 
denied errors? 



-- 
Steven