How do I using with open() as f: ... to write the file in a directory that doesn't exist.

For example:

with open('/Users/bill/output/output-text.txt', 'w') as file_to_write:file_to_write.write("{}\n".format(result))

Let's say the /Users/bill/output/ directory doesn't exist. If the directory doesn't exist just create the directory and write the file there.

You need to first create the directory.

The mkdir -p implementation from this answer will do just what you want. mkdir -p will create any parent directories as required, and silently do nothing if it already exists.

Here I've implemented a safe_open_w() method which calls mkdir_p on the directory part of the path, before opening the file for writing:

import os, os.path
import errno# Taken from https://stackoverflow.com/a/600612/119527
def mkdir_p(path):try:os.makedirs(path)except OSError as exc: # Python >2.5if exc.errno == errno.EEXIST and os.path.isdir(path):passelse: raisedef safe_open_w(path):''' Open "path" for writing, creating any parent directories as needed.'''mkdir_p(os.path.dirname(path))return open(path, 'w')with safe_open_w('/Users/bill/output/output-text.txt') as f:f.write(...)

Updated for Python 3:

import os, os.pathdef safe_open_w(path):''' Open "path" for writing, creating any parent directories as needed.'''os.makedirs(os.path.dirname(path), exist_ok=True)return open(path, 'w')with safe_open_w('/Users/bill/output/output-text.txt') as f:f.write(...)