Find "Home Directory" in Python

What is a cross-platform way to get the home directory?

You want to use os.path.expanduser.

This will ensure it works on all platforms:

from os.path import expanduser
home = expanduser("~")

If you're on Python 3.5+ you can use pathlib.Path.home():

from pathlib import Path
home = str(Path.home())

How to find the real user home directory using python?

I think os.path.expanduser(path) could be helpful.

On Unix and Windows, return the argument with an initial component of ~ or ~user replaced by that user‘s home directory.
On Unix, an initial ~ is replaced by the environment variable HOME if it is set; otherwise the current user’s home directory is looked up in the password directory through the built-in module pwd. An initial ~user is looked up directly in the password directory.
On Windows, HOME and USERPROFILE will be used if set, otherwise a combination of HOMEPATH and HOMEDRIVE will be used. An initial ~user is handled by stripping the last directory component from the created user path derived above.
If the expansion fails or if the path does not begin with a tilde, the path is returned unchanged.

So you could just do:

os.path.expanduser('~user')

Where is Python's home directory?

Where is Python installed? or where is Python's HOME directory?

An easy way to find where Python is installed, would be to do:

import sys
print(sys.executable)

Which for me outputs:

C:\Users\Vallentin\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36-32\python.exe

You can also use sys.exec_prefix which would be the equivalent of os.path.dirname(sys.executable).

If you then copy the directory part and paste it into Windows Explorer. Then it would take you to Python's home directory. You are then correct that pip would be located at.

C:\Users\Vallentin\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36-32\Scripts\pip3.exe

From a command line this can also be done in a single line:

python -c "import sys; print(sys.executable)"

Alternatively you can also do:

which python (Unix)
where python (Windows)

Where is a Python module installed?

If you want to find where a Python module is located, then like print(__file__) the same can be done with modules:

import re
import flask

print(re.__file__)
print(flask.__file__)

Which for me outputs:

C:\Users\Vallentin\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36-32\lib\re.py
C:\Users\Vallentin\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36-32\lib\site-packages\flask-0.12-py3.6.egg\flask\__init__.py

Find home directory in Python?

To get the homedir in python, you can use os.path.expanduser('~').

This also works if it's part of a longer path, such as os.path.expanduser('~/some/directory/file.txt'). If there is no ~ in the path, the function will return the path unchanged.

So depending on what you want to do it's better than reading os.environ['HOME']

The username is available through getpass.getuser()

Find the current directory and file's directory

To get the full path to the directory a Python file is contained in, write this in that file:

import os 
dir_path = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))

(Note that the incantation above won't work if you've already used os.chdir() to change your current working directory, since the value of the __file__ constant is relative to the current working directory and is not changed by an os.chdir() call.)

To get the current working directory use

import os
cwd = os.getcwd()

Documentation references for the modules, constants and functions used above:

The os and os.path modules.
The __file__ constant
os.path.realpath(path) (returns "the canonical path of the specified filename, eliminating any symbolic links encountered in the path")
os.path.dirname(path) (returns "the directory name of pathname path")
os.getcwd() (returns "a string representing the current working directory")
os.chdir(path) ("change the current working directory to path")

Find /home/user in python as root user

import os
username = os.getenv("USER") 
if(username != 'root'):
    print(os.path.expanduser('~'+username))

How do I start the file path from the users directory?

You can use the same ~ across different platforms with os.path.expanduser.

How to read data from home directory in Python

Using current directory path (assuming that is in the project) and appending the remaining static file path:

import os
current_dir = os.path.abspath(os.getcwd())

path = current_dir + "/RequestJson/request1.json"

with open(path, 'r') as f:
    f.write(data)