How to goto/access home directory using python subprocess.run()

manpreet Best Answer 3 years ago

While using python3 subprocess.run(), I need to got/access my home directory. I tried the below commands but their syntax is incorrect. Please advice me on the correct syntax that I should use. Thank you.

Test Script:

import subprocess as sp
sp.run(['cd', '$HOME'], stdout=sp.PIPE, stderr=sp.PIPE)
sp.run(['cd', '${HOME}'], stdout=sp.PIPE, stderr=sp.PIPE)
sp.run(['cd', '~'], stdout=sp.PIPE, stderr=sp.PIPE)

manpreet 3 years ago

You can use os.environ:

home = os.environ['HOME']
import subprocess as sp
sp.run(['bash', 'cd', home], stdout=sp.PIPE, stderr=sp.PIPE)

This will not change your python interpreter working directory, for that purpose you might want to use:

home = os.environ['HOME']
os.chdir(home)

If you need to access subdirectories you can get the paths using os.path.join:

home = os.environ['HOME']
subdir = 'Documents'  # or get the list of subdirs with os.listdir(home)
subdir_path = os.path.join(home, subdir)