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Path handling

File system path handling

Create

Create or generate path(s)

Action Code Details
Current working directory 
os.getcwd()
Can be set using os.chdir()
From directory and given file name 
os.path.join(dir_path, filename)
Temporary file path 
tempfile.mktemp()
Temporary file path in directory 
tempfile.mktemp(dir=dir_path)
Temporary file path with extension (suffix) 
tempfile.mktemp('.txt')
Temporary directory path 
tempfile.mkdtemp()
Temporary directory path in directory 
tempfile.mkdtemp(dir=dir_path)
Directory path obtained interactively from user via dialog 
import tkinter
from tkinter import filedialog
tkinter.Tk().withdraw()
path = tkinter.filedialog.askdirectory()
withdraw() is needed to prevent an annoying empty window from opening
File path obtained interactively from user via dialog 
import tkinter
from tkinter import filedialog
tkinter.Tk().withdraw()
path = tkinter.filedialog.askopenfile()
withdraw() is needed to prevent an annoying empty window from opening

Test

Action Code Details
File/dir exists 
os.path.exists(path)
File path 
os.path.isfile(path)
Directory path 
os.path.isdir(path)
Absolute path 
os.path.isabs(path)
Paths refer to same file 
os.path.samefile(path1, path2)
Is parent of path 
?
Is child of path 
?

Derive

Manipulate a path

Action Code Details
Filename 
os.path.basename(r'C:\Files\derp.csv')
Returns derp.csv
Filename without extension 
os.path.splitext(os.path.basename(r'C:\Files\derp.csv'))[0]
Returns derp
File extension 
os.path.splitext(r'C:\Files\derp.csv')[1]
Returns .csv
Normalize path 
os.path.normpath(path)
Absolute path 
os.path.abspath(path)
Paths are relative to the working directory
Canonical path (resolving symlinks) 
os.path.realpath(path)
Parent path 
os.path.dirname(r'C:\Files\derp.csv')
Returns C:\Files
Parent directory name 
os.path.basename(os.path.dirname((r'C:\Files\derp.csv'))
Returns Files
Get common parent path between two or more paths 
os.path.commonpath(paths)
Relative path to directory 
os.path.relpath(path, start=dir_path)
Join path with subdirectories and/or file 
os.path.join(path, ..., dirN, file)
File path without extension 
os.path.splitext(path)[0]

Extract

All snippets return a list of string paths

Action Code Details
File names 
os.listdir(dir_path)
File names that match Unix filter 
fnmatch.filter(os.listdir(dir_path), '*.csv')
File names that match regex pattern 
[f for f in os.listdir(dir_path) if re.match('\.csv$', f)]
File paths 
[os.path.join(dir_path, f) for f in os.listdir(dir_path)]
File paths that match Unix filter 
glob.glob(os.path.join(path, '*.csv'))
File paths that match Unix filter, including nested entries (recursive) 
glob.glob(os.path.join(path, '**\*.csv'), recursive = True)
The **\ is required for recursive search to do anything.
File paths that match regex pattern 
[os.path.join(dir_path, f)
    for f in os.listdir(dir_path) if re.match(r'.+\.csv$', f)]
Split path into parent path and basename 
parent_path, base_name = os.path.split(path)
Split path into file path and extension 
file_path, ext = os.path.splitext(path)