Why the program can't find the file? python thanks

Question

The code:

I'm trying to open this file but Python doesn't find it.

    import os ,shutil, re , random

        #categoria a caso
        cat= random.choice(categorie)
        
        string = str(input("Inseriisci nome utente e password\n"))  
        string=string+" "+cat
       
        lista = open((os.path.join("rubrica", "lista.txt")), "a")
        lista.write(f"\n{string}")
        lista.close()

The error is:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "c:\Python\progetti\base_allenamento\rubrica\accounts.py", line 30, in <module>
    lista = open((os.path.join("rubrica", "lista.txt")), "a")
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'rubrica\\lista.txt'

I have no idea about how to solve the problem.

Answer 1

If your accounts.py file is in the same folder as the file you're trying to open, you don't need to use os.path, you can simply do:

lista = open('lista.txt', 'a')

Answer 2

Your file structure looks something like this

- rubrica (folder)
---- accounts.py (file)
---- lista.txt  (file)

You need to search for lista.txt relative to your script account.py which is a sibling . So the correct would be either of these

lista = open("./lista.txt")  # this works
# or list = open("lista.txt")

What you are instead doing by calling os.path.join("rubrica", "lista.txt") is searching for ANOTHER folder named rubrica that is a SIBLING to your account.py file, which simply does not exist.

>>> os.path.join("rubrica", "lista.txt")
'rubrica/lista.txt'

# Here is how it is searching
# - rubrica (folder)
# ---- accounts.py (file)
# ---- lista.txt  (file)
# ---- rubrica (folder)  Here it is looking next to account.py for rubrica
# -------- lista.txt     this does not exist