How do I change the working directory in Python?

Question

cd is the shell command to change the working directory.

How do I change the current working directory in Python?

Answer 1

Here's an example of a context manager to change the working directory. It is simpler than an ActiveState version referred to elsewhere, but this gets the job done.

Context Manager: cd

import os

class cd:
    """Context manager for changing the current working directory"""
    def __init__(self, newPath):
        self.newPath = os.path.expanduser(newPath)

    def __enter__(self):
        self.savedPath = os.getcwd()
        os.chdir(self.newPath)

    def __exit__(self, etype, value, traceback):
        os.chdir(self.savedPath)

Or try the more concise equivalent(below), using ContextManager.

Example

import subprocess # just to call an arbitrary command e.g. 'ls'

# enter the directory like this:
with cd("~/Library"):
   # we are in ~/Library
   subprocess.call("ls")

# outside the context manager we are back wherever we started.