python - What's the working directory when using IDLE?

Question

So, I'm learning Python and would like to create a simple script to download a file from the internet and then write it to a file. However, I am using IDLE and have no idea what the working directory is in IDLE or how to change it. How can I do file system stuff in IDLE if I don't know the working directory or how to change it?

Answer 1

You can easily check that yourself using os.getcwd:

>>> import os
>>> os.getcwd()
'C:\Program Files\Python33'

That’s on my Windows machine, so it’s probably the installation directory of Python itself.

You can change that directory at runtime using os.chdir:

>>> os.chdir('C:\Users\poke\Desktop\')
>>> os.getcwd()
'C:\Users\poke\Desktop'
>>> with open('someFile.txt', 'w+') as f:
        f.write('This should be at C:\Users\poke\Desktop\someFile.txt now.')

This will—not surprisingly—create the file on my desktop.