(Python) Creating packages __init__.py

Question

I'm attempting to make a python package of the following hierarchy:

\standard
    \__init__.py
    \text.txt
    \scan.py

There is a function within scan.py called parse() which opens text.txt via:

name_list = open('text.txt','r')

However when I run

from standard import *
result = scan.parse()

I get the following:

IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/text.txt'

Answer 1

Python has the funny variable __file__ which is the name of the file containing the running code. Your code is looking in the current working directory instead.

Use this to open your file:

open(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), 'text.txt'), 'r')

Docs related to special variable __file__:

http://docs.python.org/reference/datamodel.html