Using package files from script

Question

If I have a script in my Python package, how can I get it to read other files from the package, since

__file__

contains (for example)

/usr/bin/myscript

and not

/usr/lib/python3.3/site-packages/mypackage/myscript

?

(The files are just templates, not modules.)

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Answer 1

You could use the ResourceManager API from setuptools' pkg_resources:

import pkg_resources
my_stream = pkg_resources.resource_stream(__name__, "foo.dat")

will open my.package/my/package/foo.dat as the file-like object my_stream for example.

This will work for regular as well as zipped eggs. Note however that this requires setuptools to be installed. For a solution that only uses the standard library (which is to be preferred), see @abarnert's answer.

Using package files from script

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