How would I load text files within a module in python?

Question

I have a python project that contains multiple modules and one module contains a .txt file of a long list of keywords.

How would I access the .txt file and load its content (the list of strings) into a variable in a .py script from another location (not the same directory)??

--- Library
         - Module_Alice
              - etc..
         - Module_Bob
              - assets
                   - audio
                   - video
                   - texts
                        - all_keywords.txt
              - unittests
                   - func 
                        - test_text_process.py

I need to load all keywords in all_keywords.txt into a variable in test_text_process.py

Possible duplicate of How do I read a text file into a string variable in Python — Sunny Patel
– Sunny Patel, Commented Oct 18, 2018 at 15:53
@mad_ what would the relative path be like? I've tried different things but only the absolute path worked. — Kid_Learning_C
– Kid_Learning_C, Commented Oct 18, 2018 at 15:59

Rocky Li · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-18 16:07:10Z

3

Use open

You can use absolute path:

with open("/root/path/to/your/file.txt",'r') as fin:
    # Your reading logic

Or you can use relative path:

with open("../../your/file.txt",'r') as fin:
    # read it.

In the case you'll move the folder around and run it in other place, but not on the level of the python file, you might want to do relative import in this way:

import os.path as path
text_file_path = path.dirname(path.abspath(__file__)) + '/assets/texts/all_keywords.txt'

This way you can run your python file anywhere and still be able to use the text file. If you just do a relative you can't run your python from outside of its directory, i.e. like python path/to/script.py

edited Oct 18, 2018 at 16:07

answered Oct 18, 2018 at 15:53

Rocky Li

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2 Comments

Kid_Learning_C Over a year ago

what would the relative path be like? I've tried different things but only the absolute path worked.

Rocky Li Over a year ago

say you're running test_text_process.py, the relative path would be '../assets/texts/all_keywords.txt'

rockikz · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-18 16:05:32Z

1

You can use something like this:

with open("../../assets/texts/all_keywords.txt") as f:
    keywords = f.readlines()

Now that keywords list variable contains all keywords on the file.

edited Oct 18, 2018 at 16:05

answered Oct 18, 2018 at 15:55

rockikz

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1 Comment

Kid_Learning_C Over a year ago

the relative path doesn't work: FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '../assets/text/all_keywords.txt'

Stephen C · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-18 15:56:36Z

1

This will read the file into a list of strings from that location.

with open('../assets/text/all_keywords.txt') as infile:
    list_of_strings = infile.readlines()

answered Oct 18, 2018 at 15:56

Stephen C

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2 Comments

Kid_Learning_C Over a year ago

the relative path doesn't work: FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '../assets/text/all_keywords.txt'

Stephen C Over a year ago

Depends on where you are running the file from. It may be 'Module_Bob/assets/text/all_keywords.txt' or 'Library/Module_Bob/assets/text/all_keywords.txt'

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