code: def expand_user(path, user=None):
      
  
      def _replace(m):
          m_user = m.group(1) or user
          return pwd.getpwnam(m_user).pw_dir if m_user else pwd.getpwuid(os.getuid()).pw_dir
  
      return re.sub(r'~(\w*)', _replace, path)
docs: Roughly the same as os.path.expanduser, but you can pass a default user.