8.2 Moving around the file system

If you have used a command line in Windows, macOS, or Linux, you know about the idea of the “current working directory” and how to move to another directory. Python has the same concept and functionality.

Figure 8.3 is another partial view of the directory tree for the files that make up this book.

Figure 8.3: A directory tree showing the current directory

If I am in the src directory, I can issue pwd on the operating system command line and see something like

Path
----
C:\src

on Windows, or

/src

on macOS or Linux. “pwd” is an abbreviation for “print working directory.” The corresponding Python function is getcwd, which is short for “get the current working directory,”

import os

os.getcwd()

'C:\\src'

I issue cd code on the command...