Trouble getting to windows My Documents directory

[Rustom Mody]

On Friday, July 10, 2015 at 11:18:57 PM UTC+5:30, Rustom Mody wrote:
> On Friday, July 10, 2015 at 8:56:48 PM UTC+5:30, Mark Storkamp wrote:
> >  MRAB  wrote:
> > 
> > > On 2015-07-10 15:27, Mark Storkamp via Python-list wrote:
> > > > I'm just learning Python, and I've run into trouble trying to change
> > > > directory to the windows My Documents directory. There's likely a better
> > > > way to do this, but this is what I've tried so far:
> > > >
> > > > ---------------------------------------------
> > > > from tkinter import Tk
> > > > from tkinter.filedialog import askopenfilename
> > > >
> > > > import os
> > > >
> > > > Tk().withdraw()
> > > >
> > > > sourcedir = os.environ['HOME']+"/Documents/"
> > > > os.chdir(sourcedir)
> > > > src = askopenfilename()
> > > > if src == '' :
> > > >      sys.exit()
> > > > fin = open(src, mode='r')
> > > > ## do stuff
> > > > fin.close()
> > > > -----------------------------------------------
> > > >
> > > > When this is run from IDLE, it works fine. But when I double click on
> > > > the saved file to run it, it quits without ever showing the open file
> > > > dialog box, and doesn't show any error message.
> > > >
> > > > The problem is with the os.environ['HOME'] call. If I comment it out
> > > > (and fix up the surrounding code with an absolute path) then it runs.
> > > > But then it won't work properly for other users.
> > > >
> > > > Interestingly enough, when I moved this to a Mac so I could post to
> > > > Usenet, I discovered it works fine on the Mac. Only Windows seems to be
> > > > the problem. Windows 7.
> > > >
> > > > Any thoughts or suggestions?
> > > >
> > > Try os.path.expanduser(r'~\Documents').
> > > 
> > > It's a bad idea to use os.chdir; it's better to use absolute paths:
> > > 
> > > src = askopenfilename(initialdir=os.path.expanduser(r'~\Documents'))
> > 
> > I thought there must be a way to pass the directory to askopenfilename, 
> > but I just hadn't figured out how yet.
> > 
> > The other suggestions for using HOMEPATH also worked for both Mac and 
> > Windows.
> > 
> > Thanks.
> 
> According to http://serverfault.com/questions/29948/difference-between-profile-and-home-path
> it seems %userprofile% is more current than %homepath%
> [though windows arcana is not exactly my forte ;-) ]

which may need to be combined with something like:
home = 'HOME' if os.name=='posix' else 'USERPROFILE'
(see https://docs.python.org/2/library/os.html for os.name)