Dealing with Path, Directory and Files

Majors tools, "Python included", to deal with path are pathlib and os module.

Module	Documentation
pathlib	pathlib documentation - PEP 428
os	os.path documentation

pathlib

>>> from pathlib import Path

# Relative Path
>>> Path('my/relative/path')
WindowsPath('my/relative/path')

# Absolute Path
>>> Path.cwd() / Path('my/absolute/path')
WindowsPath('C:/Users/*Username*/PythonWorkspace/Project/_PythonGuide/my/absolute/path')

# Use of Path
>>> p = Path('C:/Users/*Username*/_PythonGuide/LICENCE.txt')

>>> p.parts
('C:\\', 'Users', '*Username*', '_PythonGuide', 'LICENCE.txt')

>>> p.anchor
'C:\\'

>>> p.parent
WindowsPath('C:/Users/*Username*/_PythonGuide')

>>> p.name
'LICENCE.txt'

>>> p.stem
'LICENCE'

>>> p.suffix
'.txt'

>>> p.drive
'C:'

os

```python
>>>import os

# Relative Path
>>> os.path.relpath('my/relative/path')
'my\\relative\\path'

# Absolute Path
>>> os.path.abspath('my/absolute/path')
'C:\\Users\\*Username*\\PythonWorkspace\\Project\\_PythonGuide\\my\\absolute\\path'

# Use of os.path
>>> p = 'C:\\Users\\*Username*\\_PythonGuide\\LICENCE.txt'

>>> os.path.dirname(p)
'C:\\Users\\*Username*\\_PythonGuide'

>>> os.path.basename(p)
'LICENCE.txt'

>>> os.path.split(p)
('C:\\Users\\*Username*\\_PythonGuide', 'LICENCE.txt')
```

To get the current working directory

pathlib

>>> Path.cwd()
WindowsPath('C:/Users/*Username*/PythonWorkspace/Project/_PythonGuide')

os

>>> os.getcwd()
'C:\\Users\\*Username*\\PythonWorkspace\\Project\\_PythonGuide'

Or get the parent directory

pathlib

>>> p = Path.cwd()

>>> p
WindowsPath('C:/Users/*Username*/PythonWorkspace/Project/_PythonGuide')

>>> list(p.parents)
[WindowsPath('C:/Users/*Username*/_PythonGuide'), WindowsPath('C:/Users/*Username*'), WindowsPath('C:/Users'), WindowsPath('C:/')]

>>> Path.cwd().parents[0]
WindowsPath('C:/Users/*Username*/PythonWorkspace/Project')

>>> Path.cwd().parents[1]
WindowsPath('C:/Users/*Username*/PythonWorkspace')

>>> Path.cwd().parents[2]
WindowsPath('C:/Users/*Username*')

>>> Path.cwd().parents[3]
WindowsPath('C:/Users')

>>> Path.cwd().parents[4]
WindowsPath('C:/')

os

>>> os.path.abspath('.')
'C:\\Users\\*Username*\\PythonWorkspace\\Project\\_PythonGuide'

>>> os.path.abspath('..')
'C:\\Users\\*Username*\\PythonWorkspace\\Project'

>>> os.path.abspath('..\..')
'C:\\Users\\*Username*\\PythonWorkspace'

>>> os.path.abspath('..\..\..')
'C:\\Users\\*Username*'

>>> os.path.abspath('..\..\..\..')
'C:\\Users'

>>> os.path.abspath('..\..\..\..\..')
'C:\\'

To change your working directory

os.chdir('A:/New/Path')

To get the full path to the directory where your Python file is contained in:

# __file__ is a constant, representing the .py file executed
file_path = os.path.realpath(__file__)
dir_path = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))

To concatenate path

>>> Path.cwd() / Path('my/absolute/path')
WindowsPath('C:/Users/*Username*/AppData/Local/Programs/Python/Python37/my/absolute/path')

# or

os.join(os.getcwd(), 'my/relative/path')

(Note that the incantation above won't work if you've already used os.chdir() to change your current working directory, since the value of the file constant is relative to the current working directory and is not changed by an os.chdir() call.)

>>> Path.home()
WindowsPath('C:/Users/*Username*')

Path(r'C:\Users\*Username*\spam').mkdir() # Create the spam folder
os.makedirs().

---

Last update: September 27, 2021 09:50:41