Way to temporarily change the directory in Python to execute code without affecting global working directory?

I need to perform an action without changing the global working directory. My case is I have a few folders, and in each, there are a few files. I need to do some computations using those files. Initially, I tried the following:

with os.chdir('/directory'):
    ...some code needing execution inside 

but got AttributeError: __enter__. After reading up online using with seems not to be an option. Therefore I'm looking to find another elegant way of doing so.

I also tried just using os statements like so:

cwd = os.getcwd()

os.chdir('/directory')
..run code inside directory 

os.chdir(cwd)

but this is a pain during debugging and seems like a bad practice.

You can write your own context manager to temporarily change the working directory.

import contextlib


@contextlib.contextmanager
def new_cd(x):
    d = os.getcwd()

    # This could raise an exception, but it's probably
    # best to let it propagate and let the caller
    # deal with it, since they requested x
    os.chdir(x)

    try:
        yield

    finally:
        # This could also raise an exception, but you *really*
        # aren't equipped to figure out what went wrong if the
        # old working directory can't be restored.
        os.chdir(d)


with new_cd('/directory'):
    ...

Consider spawning a subprocess:

import subprocess

subprocess.run(cmd, cwd="/directory")

See https://docs.python.org/3/library/subprocess.html.

You can make your own context manager. This answer is similar @chepner 's, but will still change back the current working directory in case of error.

import contextlib
import os

@contextlib.contextmanager
#temporarily change to a different working directory
def temporaryWorkingDirectory(path):
    _oldCWD = os.getcwd()
    os.chdir(os.path.abspath(path))

    try:
        yield
    finally:
        os.chdir(_oldCWD)

I tested it using this

#test
print(os.getcwd())
with temporaryWorkingDirectory("../"):
    print(os.getcwd())
print(os.getcwd())