December 11, 2018
The more I use #Python pathlib, the more I love it. #EuroPython pic.twitter.com/GENcbk76ne
— Christian Barra (@christianbarra) July 26, 2018
The Python Standard Library is like a gold mine, and the pathlib module is really a gem.
pathlib
provides an useful abstraction on top of different filesystems (posix and Windows).
But that's just a small part of the very friendly user experience that you can have.
# files in my folder
README.md example.py subfolder/README.md
We can import Path
from pathlib
from pathlib import Path
path = Path(".")
# PosixPath('.')
files = [file for file in path.iterdir()]
# [PosixPath('subfolder'), PosixPath('README.md'), PosixPath('example.py')]
Path()
returns (in this case) a pathlib.PosixPath
object with a very handy iterdir
, a useful generator for when you have a lot of files in your folder.
path.iterdir()
<generator object Path.iterdir at 0x10aca2cf0>
Do you want to get only the files with a specific format?
md_files = [
file for file in path.iterdir() if file.suffix == '.md'
]
# [PosixPath('README.md')]
You can get a similar result using glob
md_files = [file for file in path.glob("*.md")]
# [PosixPath('README.md')]
glob
is quite powerful, using the **
pattern you can search recursively
md_files = [file for file in path.glob("**/*.md")]
# [PosixPath('README.md'), PosixPath('subfolder/README.md')]
If you want to learn more about the pathlib
module the PEP 428 and the official documentation are the right places where to start.
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