title: Flask: How to read a file in application root?
body: <p>My Flask application structure looks like</p>
  
  <pre><code>application_top/
           application/
                      static/
                            english_words.txt
                      templates/
                               main.html
                       urls.py
                       views.py
           runserver.py
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>When I run the <code>runserver.py</code>, it starts the server at <code>localhost:5000</code>.
  In my <code>views.py</code>, I try to open the file <code>english.txt</code> as  </p>
  
  <pre><code>f = open('/static/english.txt')
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>It gives error <code>IOError: No such file or directory</code></p>
  
  <p>How can I access this file?</p>