which one should I use: os.sep or os.path.sep?

Solution 1:

I'd use os.path.sep to make it very clear that it's the path separator… But consistency is more important, so if one is already being used, use that. Otherwise, pick one and use it all the time.

Edit: Just to make sure you're not reinventing the wheel, though, the path module already has join, split, dirname, and basename functions… So you should rarely need to use path.sep:

>>> os.path.join("foo", "bar", "baz")
'foo/bar/baz'
>>> os.path.split(_)
('foo/bar', 'baz')

Solution 2:

I recommend you use os.path.sep for clarity, since it's a path separator, not an OS separator. If you import os.path as path you can call it path.sep, which is even better.

Solution 3:

If you are using Python 2.7, I suggest using os.sep (works) instead of os.path.sep (broken) as Jython on Windows has a bug returning a "/" slash instead of the required "\" backslash.

Solution 4:

The following examples could highlight the differences between os.path.join and os.path.sep.join.

>>> import os
>>> os.path.join("output", "images", "saved")
'output/images/saved'
>>> os.path.sep.join(["output", "images", "saved"])
'output/images/saved'

I guess the os.path.sep.join is more robust and can be used w/o modifications for any os.