Python File Handling
Several modules for managing file paths and carrying out file and directory operations are included in Python‘s standard library. For higher-level file management activities, the most important of them are the os module and its nested submodule os .path, the more recent path lib module, and the shutil module.
OS Module Operating system-dependent functionality can be used portable with the help of the OS module. For working with the operating system, it offers dozens of functions, such as those pertaining to directories, processes, and shell variables. Even though their features may vary from platform to platform, they offer Python scripts a uniform interface, so code built with OS and os .path is typically run able without modifications on all platforms. It is generally recommended to import the OS module using import os instead of import in order to prevent shadowing of built-in functions such as open().
Common directory and file operations available in the operating system module include:
- Get the current working directory with operating system get cwd.
- Change the working directory with operating system chdir(path).
- operating system listdir (path) lists directory contents.
- Utilising operating system.mkdir(path), a directory is created. An exception called File Exists Error is raised if the directory already exists. Use operating system.makedirs() to generate multiple path directories.
- The operating system.rmdir(path) function deletes empty directories.
- Os. remove(path), commonly referred to as os.unlink(), is used to delete a file.
- Use operating system.rename(old name, new name) to rename a file or directory.
- Use operating system.walk(path) to browse a directory tree, including subdirectories. Each directory that os.walk() visits yields a tuple that includes the directory’s path, a list of the directories and files that are included within it.
- Using operating system.chmod(path, mode) to modify file permissions.
- Use operating system.chown(path, uid, gid) to alter file ownership.
operating system.open, os.read, and operating system.write are lower-level functions that interact with raw bytes and file descriptors (integer codes) in the operating system module. The built-in open() method in Python, which offers higher-level functionality like line-ending and Unicode translations, is generally advised for the majority of common file processing tasks. Data can be transferred using the built-in open() function’s methods by creating a file object that acts as a link to an external file.
The letters “r,” “w,” and “a” stand for reading, writing, and adding files, respectively. The ‘w’ mode overwrites the existing file if it exists, but creates it if it doesn’t. Only when there isn’t an existing file does the ‘x’ mode write. Binary data is handled by adding ‘b’ to the mode (e.g., ‘rb’, ‘wb’), whereas adding ‘+’ allows for both reading and writing. A typical technique to guarantee that the file is automatically closed even in the event of failures is to use a with open statement.
The operating system.path module The purpose of the os.path module is to manipulate pathnames. It is essential for building portable code because it manages the variations in path conventions between operating systems (e.g., using backslashes on Windows and forward slashes on Unix-like platforms). Instead of using ordinary string operations for any filename manipulation, you should utilise procedures from os.path. Despite its submodule-like functionality, the OS module frequently injects it into sys.modules[‘os.path’] upon startup.
Key functions in operating system.path include:
By utilising the appropriate directory separator, os.path.join(path, paths) enables the intelligent joining of one or more path components.
- This function checks the path for files and directories.
- Os.path.isfile(path) checks if the path goes to a standard file.
- Use os.path.isdir(path) to check if path refers to directory.
- Using os.path.islink, checks if path leads to symbolic link.(path).
- Checks whether the path is an absolute pathname using the os.path.isabs(path) function.
- The function os.path.abspath(path) yields a path’s absolute version.
- The directory part of a path can be obtained using os.path.dirname(path).
- Os.path.basename(path) returns filename.
- To split a path into a directory and filename, use os.path.split(path).
- Split a path into (root, extension) pairs with os.path.splitext(path).
- File size in bytes is returned by os.path.getsize(path).
Other Modules (shut il , path lib , io):
- The shutil module offers higher-level functions including recursive directory tree copying, file copying (shutil.copy()), and file moving (shutil.move()).
- With Python 3.4+, the pathlib module was added, providing an object-oriented method for managing file paths. The Path object, which may be constructed and modified by joining path components with operators like /, is introduced. The.open() function of Path objects can be used with the with statement, and they provide methods for many typical file system operations.
- It is the IO module that specifies the file object interfaces. For use with functions that anticipate file-like objects, it also contains classes like io.StringIO and io.BytesIO that let you treat strings or bytes in memory like files.
An example of code The os and os.path modules are used in this Python code example to illustrate some typical file path and directory actions.
This example shows how to use os.path.join() to create platform-independent paths, os.path.exists() to check for existence, os.path.isfile() and os.path.isdir() to determine type, os.mkdir() and os.rmdir() to create and remove directories, os.rename() to rename files, and os.remove It also uses read(), readlines(), and open() for filing, reading, and writing.