How do you tell Python where to save a text file?

For example, my computer is running the Python file off my desktop. I want it to save all the text file in my documents folder, not on my desktop. How do I do that in a script like this?

name_of_file = raw_input("What is the name of the file: ")completeName = name_of_file + ".txt"#Alter this line in any shape or form it is up to you.file1 = open(completeName , "w")toFile = raw_input("Write what you want into the field")file1.write(toFile)file1.close()
8

Best Answer


Just use an absolute path when opening the filehandle for writing.

import os.pathsave_path = 'C:/example/'name_of_file = raw_input("What is the name of the file: ")completeName = os.path.join(save_path, name_of_file+".txt") file1 = open(completeName, "w")toFile = raw_input("Write what you want into the field")file1.write(toFile)file1.close()

You could optionally combine this with os.path.abspath() as described in Bryan's answer to automatically get the path of a user's Documents folder. Cheers!

Use os.path.join to combine the path to the Documents directory with the completeName (filename?) supplied by the user.

import oswith open(os.path.join('/path/to/Documents',completeName), "w") as file1:toFile = raw_input("Write what you want into the field")file1.write(toFile)

If you want the Documents directory to be relative to the user's home directory, you could use something like:

os.path.join(os.path.expanduser('~'),'Documents',completeName)

Others have proposed using os.path.abspath. Note that os.path.abspath does not resolve '~' to the user's home directory:

In [10]: cd /tmp/tmpIn [11]: os.path.abspath("~")Out[11]: '/tmp/~'

A small update to this. raw_input() is renamed as input() in Python 3.

Python 3 release note

Another simple way without using import OS is,

outFileName="F:\\folder\\folder\\filename.txt"outFile=open(outFileName, "w")outFile.write("""Hello my name is ABCD""")outFile.close()

If you want to save a file to a particular DIRECTORY and FILENAME here is some simple example. It also checks to see if the directory has or has not been created.

import os.pathdirectory = './html/'filename = "file.html"file_path = os.path.join(directory, filename)if not os.path.isdir(directory):os.mkdir(directory)file = open(file_path, "w")file.write(html)file.close()

Hope this helps you!

Using an absolute or relative string as the filename.

name_of_file = input("What is the name of the file: ")completeName = '/home/user/Documents'+ name_of_file + ".txt"file1 = open(completeName , "w")toFile = input("Write what you want into the field")file1.write(toFile)file1.close()

Just give your desired path if file does not exist earlier;

 from os.path import abspathwith open ('C:\\Users\\Admin\\Desktop\\results.txt', mode = 'w') as final1:print(final1.write('This is my new file.'))print(f'Text has been processed and saved at {abspath(final1.name)}')

Output will be:

Text has been processed and saved at C:\Users\Admin\Desktop\results.txt

If you want save file or another some in folder you can use shutil module from base python library.

import shutilpath_to_file = f'home/user/My_Project/media/{my_file_name}'path_to_folder = 'home/user/my_folder/'shutil.copy(path_to_file, path_to_folder)

You can do it ever for some file's list or in Django querysets:

from images.models import Imageimport shutilimages = Image.objects.all()for image in images:image_path = image.file.pathshutil.copy(image_path, path_to folder)

All your choised files will put in directed folder.