Is there a way I can use ~ to point to the home directory in file paths in Python?

Question

I seek to automate some tasks with Python (version 3.5, but I am also curious about 2.7) instead of shell scripts. And I would be glad if I could write "~/myfile.txt" instead of /home/me/myfile.txt. Is this possible?

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10170407/find-home-directory-in-python — Habib Kazemi, Dec 23 '15 at 21:40

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 23 '15 at 21:38

Use os.path.expanduser("~")

for line in open(os.path.expanduser("~/my_file")):
    print line

Docs:

On Unix and Windows, return the argument with an initial component of ~ or ~user replaced by that user‘s home directory.

https://docs.python.org/2/library/os.path.html#os.path.expanduser

Is there a way I can use ~ to point to the home directory in file paths in Python?

1 Answers1