Implemented Dynamic File Path Management in Python

📅 2023-03-27 — Session: Implemented Dynamic File Path Management in Python

🕒 19:55–20:50
🏷️ Labels: Python, Dynamic Paths, File Management, Cross-Platform
📂 Project: Dev
⭐ Priority: MEDIUM

Session Goal

The goal of this session was to implement dynamic file path management in Python scripts to ensure compatibility across different user systems and platforms.

Key Activities

• Developed methods to dynamically set file paths for GADM data files using the user’s home directory.
• Constructed dynamic paths for raster and ACLED CSV files using the getpass module to retrieve the current user’s username.
• Improved code for reading DHS points from GeoJSON files using pathlib and getpass.
• Demonstrated plotting DHS points in Africa with GeoPandas and Matplotlib.
• Created platform-independent file paths using the os and getpass modules.

Achievements

• Successfully replaced hard-coded paths with dynamic path construction methods, enhancing the flexibility and portability of Python scripts.
• Improved data processing and visualization techniques using dynamic paths.

Pending Tasks

• Further testing of the implemented dynamic path methods across different operating systems and user environments to ensure robustness.