Which method of organizing paths is preferable: using relative or absolute paths?

It is preferable to use relative paths in test automation because they make the project more portable and independent of the specific file system structure on different machines.

For example, if tests and resources are in the same project, relative paths allow running tests on different environments without changing the code.

However, in some cases, such as accessing system resources or external libraries, absolute paths may be used.

Example in Python:

import os
base_dir = os.path.dirname(__file__)
file_path = os.path.join(base_dir, 'data', 'test_input.txt')