File system path handling
- Generate path
- Generate paths from directory
- Test
- Path manipulation
- File info
Generate path
| What | How | Details |
| Current working directory | os.getcwd() | Can be set using os.chdir() |
| From directory for 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') | |
| Open temporary file with clean-up | with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile() as file:
path = file.name | |
| 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 |
Generate paths from directory
All snippets return a list of string paths.
| What | How | 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$', f)] | |
| File paths | [os.path.join(dir_path, f) for f in os.listdir(dir_path)] | |
| File paths that match Unix filter | glob.glob(os.path.join(path, '*.csv')) | |
| File paths that match regex pattern | [os.path.join(dir_path, f) for f in os.listdir(dir_path) if re.match(r'.+\.csv$', f)] | |
| 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. |
Test
| What | How | Details |
| File/dir exists | os.path.exists(path) | |
| File | os.path.isfile(path) | |
| Directory | os.path.isdir(path) | |
| Absolute path | os.path.isabs(path) | |
| Paths refer to same file | os.path.samefile(path1, path2) | |
| Parent of | ? | |
| Child of | ? | |
Path manipulation
| What | How | Details | |
| 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 | |
| Relative path to directory | os.path.relpath(path, start=dir_path) | | |
| Get common parent path between two or more paths | os.path.commonpath(paths) | | |
| Extend path with subdirectories | os.path.join(path, ..., dirN, file) | | |
| File path without extension | os.path.splitext(path)[0] | | |
| 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) | | |
File info
| What | How | 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 |
| Parent directory name | os.path.basename(os.path.dirname((r'C:\Files\derp.csv')) | Returns Files |