Use different paths depending on which computer I run my program

Question

I'm playing with machine learning algorithms. I use my laptop to develop, but when I want to run some more demanding training I use external server.

The problem I have is how to set a path to dataset so I wouldn't have to change it when copying python files from one platform to another. My current approach is to use the same folder structure and use this to get home directory path. But since some datasets are quite big they are shared among all users, therefore are not in my home directory. My idea is to have a file in my home that will contain all the necessary paths and will be loaded at the beginning, but I'm not convinced that its the best way. (I use python)

Maybe you have some ideas how to do it better?

There is no "best way", but this seems very common sense to me... — Sven-Eric Krüger, Jun 25 '18 at 09:39
@koPytok its not really related to my question, but I like the idea :) — corwin, Jun 25 '18 at 09:44

Alastair McCormack · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-25T09:57:40.147

1

The typical ways to pass runtime configuration to a script are:

A configuration file (See https://docs.python.org/3/library/configparser.html)
Environment variable (https://docs.python.org/3/library/os.html#os.environ)
An argument passed to your script (https://docs.python.org/3/library/argparse.html).

edited Jun 25 '18 at 09:57

answered Jun 25 '18 at 09:50

Alastair McCormack

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I like the idea with the configuration file, but why not to use json instead? – corwin Jun 25 '18 at 09:57
Yes, use whatever configuration format you're comfortable with – Alastair McCormack Jun 25 '18 at 09:59

Use different paths depending on which computer I run my program

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