[wxPython-users] Re: a couple of scary moments in wxpython under win32 under py2exe with a ridiculous deadline thrown in...

[Christopher Barker]

Brian Martin wrote:
> How do I safely reference icons and images used in my application... I 
> can't seem to find a way to get the directory where my python script is 
> actually executed from...

If you do some googling, you'll find a number of discussions about this 
topic. The reason there isn't some easy way to do this with Python or wx 
is that, in fact, There is no fool-proof, cross platform way to do this. 
 From that comes the recommendation that you not use the application's 
installed dir as a way to find data files, etc.

That being said, at least on Windows, it's used often, and works OK. I'm 
sure others here will tell you how. It's a lot more problematic on *nix 
systems. In any case, however, I'd highly encourage you to do something 
in your applications start-up that sets a "DataDirectory" attribute or 
something, and everywhere else in your code you use that. That way, you 
can change where you put stuff, and only need to change things in one place.

That being said, why not:

wx.StandardPaths.GetDataDir

   Return the location of the applications global, i.e. not
   user-specific, data files.

   Example return values:

     * Unix: prefix/share/appname
     * Windows: the directory where the executable file is located
     * Mac: appname.app/Contents/SharedSupport bundle subdirectory

or (though I don't recommend it):

wxStandardPaths::GetExecutablePath

   Return the directory and the filename for the current executable.

-Chris




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