How do I put a variable in a path

March 9, 2022

I’m trying to store a path in a variable. see below

target = r"C:\Users\User\CodeProjects\WebSafer"

However, I need it to be dynamic. Not hardcoded to my username, so I get the login username by doing:

val = os.getlogin()

So I need to put the variable val in the path. But every time I tried doing it I always get a truncating/syntax error. Please help me! Below is the code snippet:

print("No copy found...making a copy\n")

val = os.getlogin()

original = r"C:\*******\********\*******\***\****"
target = r"C:\Users\User\CodeProjects\WebSafer"
shutil.copy(original, target)

The "*" are just for privacy reasons, there actually replaced with the right path location to what I’m copying.

What I have tried so far:

target = r"C:\Users\{val}\CodeProjects\WebSafer".format(val = os.getlogin)
target = r"C:\Users\{}\CodeProjects\WebSafer".format(val)
target = rf"C:\Users\{val}\CodeProjects\WebSafer".format(val = os.getlogin)
target = rf"C:\Users\{}\CodeProjects\WebSafer".format(val)

>Solution :

Don’t mix f with .format, this is working for me:

import os

val = os.getlogin()
print(rf"C:\Users\{val}\CodeProjects\WebSafer")

And I think better way is:

import os.path
from pathlib import Path

home = str(Path.home())
print(os.path.join(home, "CodeProjects\WebSafer"))

Then if you encounter some error when copying, you need clarify what you want to copy, copy a file, or a folder, if a folder, should it go to within the dest folder, or overwrite dest folder?
You may want try different methods such as
shutil.copy, shutil.copytree, and different parameters.