Python - Get path of root project structure

Question

I\'ve got a python project with a configuration file in the project root. The configuration file needs to be accessed in a few different files throughout the project.

Answer 1

You can do this how Django does it: define a variable to the Project Root from a file that is in the top-level of the project. For example, if this is what your project structure looks like:

project/
    configuration.conf
    definitions.py
    main.py
    utils.py

In definitions.py you can define (this requires import os):

ROOT_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)) # This is your Project Root

Thus, with the Project Root known, you can create a variable that points to the location of the configuration (this can be defined anywhere, but a logical place would be to put it in a location where constants are defined - e.g. definitions.py):

CONFIG_PATH = os.path.join(ROOT_DIR, 'configuration.conf')  # requires `import os`

Then, you can easily access the constant (in any of the other files) with the import statement (e.g. in utils.py): from definitions import CONFIG_PATH.

Answer 2

Below Code Returns the path until your project root

import sys
print(sys.path[1])

Answer 3

This worked for me using a standard PyCharm project with my virtual environment (venv) under the project root directory.

Code below isnt the prettiest, but consistently gets the project root. It returns the full directory path to venv from the VIRTUAL_ENV environment variable e.g. /Users/NAME/documents/PROJECT/venv

It then splits the path at the last /, giving an array with two elements. The first element will be the project path e.g. /Users/NAME/documents/PROJECT

import os

print(os.path.split(os.environ['VIRTUAL_ENV'])[0])

Answer 4

There are many answers here but I couldn't find something simple that covers all cases so allow me to suggest my solution too:

import pathlib
import os

def get_project_root():
    """
    There is no way in python to get project root. This function uses a trick.
    We know that the function that is currently running is in the project.
    We know that the root project path is in the list of PYTHONPATH
    look for any path in PYTHONPATH list that is contained in this function's path
    Lastly we filter and take the shortest path because we are looking for the root.
    :return: path to project root
    """
    apth = str(pathlib.Path().absolute())
    ppth = os.environ['PYTHONPATH'].split(':')
    matches = [x for x in ppth if x in apth]
    project_root = min(matches, key=len)
    return project_root