How to get/set logical directory path in python

The underlying operational system / shell reports real paths to python.

So, there really is no way around it, since os.getcwd() is a wrapped call to C Library getcwd() function.

There are some workarounds in the spirit of the one that you already know which is launching pwd.

Another one would involve using os.environ['PWD']. If that environmnent variable is set you can make some getcwd function that respects it.

The solution below combines both:

import os
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE

class CwdKeeper(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self._cwd = os.environ.get("PWD")
        if self._cwd is None: # no environment. fall back to calling pwd on shell
           self._cwd = Popen('pwd', stdout=PIPE).communicate()[0].strip()
        self._os_getcwd = os.getcwd
        self._os_chdir = os.chdir

    def chdir(self, path):
        if not self._cwd:
            return self._os_chdir(path)
        p = os.path.normpath(os.path.join(self._cwd, path))
        result = self._os_chdir(p)
        self._cwd = p
        os.environ["PWD"] = p
        return result

    def getcwd(self):
        if not self._cwd:
            return self._os_getcwd()
        return self._cwd

cwd = CwdKeeper()
print cwd.getcwd()
# use only cwd.chdir and cwd.getcwd from now on.    
# monkeypatch os if you want:
os.chdir = cwd.chdir
os.getcwd = cwd.getcwd
# now you can use os.chdir and os.getcwd as normal.

This also does the trick for me:

import os
os.popen('pwd').read().strip('\n')

Here is a demonstration in python shell:

>>> import os
>>> os.popen('pwd').read()
'/home/projteam/staging/site/proj\n'
>>> os.popen('pwd').read().strip('\n')
'/home/projteam/staging/site/proj'
>>> # Also works if PWD env var is set
>>> os.getenv('PWD')
'/home/projteam/staging/site/proj'
>>> # This gets actual path, not symlinked path
>>> import subprocess
>>> p = subprocess.Popen('pwd', stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
>>> p.communicate()[0]  # returns non-symlink path
'/home/projteam/staging/deploys/20150114-141114/site/proj\n'

Getting the environment variable PWD didn't always work for me so I use the popen method. Cheers!