10. File and Directory Access

The modules described in this chapter deal with disk files and directories. For example, there are modules for reading the properties of files, manipulating paths in a portable way, and creating temporary files. The full list of modules in this chapter is:

• 10.1. os.path — Common pathname manipulations
  • abspath()
  • basename()
  • commonprefix()
  • dirname()
  • exists()
  • lexists()
  • expanduser()
  • expandvars()
  • getatime()
  • getmtime()
  • getctime()
  • getsize()
  • isabs()
  • isfile()
  • isdir()
  • islink()
  • ismount()
  • join()
  • normcase()
  • normpath()
  • realpath()
  • relpath()
  • samefile()
  • sameopenfile()
  • samestat()
  • split()
  • splitdrive()
  • splitext()
  • splitunc()
  • walk()
  • supports_unicode_filenames
• 10.2. fileinput — Iterate over lines from multiple input streams
  • input()
  • filename()
  • fileno()
  • lineno()
  • filelineno()
  • isfirstline()
  • isstdin()
  • nextfile()
  • close()
  • FileInput
  • hook_compressed()
  • hook_encoded()
• 10.3. stat — Interpreting stat() results
  • S_ISDIR()
  • S_ISCHR()
  • S_ISBLK()
  • S_ISREG()
  • S_ISFIFO()
  • S_ISLNK()
  • S_ISSOCK()
  • S_IMODE()
  • S_IFMT()
  • ST_MODE
  • ST_INO
  • ST_DEV
  • ST_NLINK
  • ST_UID
  • ST_GID
  • ST_SIZE
  • ST_ATIME
  • ST_MTIME
  • ST_CTIME
  • S_IFSOCK
  • S_IFLNK
  • S_IFREG
  • S_IFBLK
  • S_IFDIR
  • S_IFCHR
  • S_IFIFO
  • S_ISUID
  • S_ISGID
  • S_ISVTX
  • S_IRWXU
  • S_IRUSR
  • S_IWUSR
  • S_IXUSR
  • S_IRWXG
  • S_IRGRP
  • S_IWGRP
  • S_IXGRP
  • S_IRWXO
  • S_IROTH
  • S_IWOTH
  • S_IXOTH
  • S_ENFMT
  • S_IREAD
  • S_IWRITE
  • S_IEXEC
  • UF_NODUMP
  • UF_IMMUTABLE
  • UF_APPEND
  • UF_OPAQUE
  • UF_NOUNLINK
  • UF_COMPRESSED
  • UF_HIDDEN
  • SF_ARCHIVED
  • SF_IMMUTABLE
  • SF_APPEND
  • SF_NOUNLINK
  • SF_SNAPSHOT
• 10.4. statvfs — Constants used with os.statvfs()
  • F_BSIZE
  • F_FRSIZE
  • F_BLOCKS
  • F_BFREE
  • F_BAVAIL
  • F_FILES
  • F_FFREE
  • F_FAVAIL
  • F_FLAG
  • F_NAMEMAX
• 10.5. filecmp — File and Directory Comparisons
  • cmp()
  • cmpfiles()
  • 10.5.1. The dircmp class
    • dircmp
      • dircmp.report()
      • dircmp.report_partial_closure()
      • dircmp.report_full_closure()
      • dircmp.left
      • dircmp.right
      • dircmp.left_list
      • dircmp.right_list
      • dircmp.common
      • dircmp.left_only
      • dircmp.right_only
      • dircmp.common_dirs
      • dircmp.common_files
      • dircmp.common_funny
      • dircmp.same_files
      • dircmp.diff_files
      • dircmp.funny_files
      • dircmp.subdirs
• 10.6. tempfile — Generate temporary files and directories
  • TemporaryFile()
  • NamedTemporaryFile()
  • SpooledTemporaryFile()
  • mkstemp()
  • mkdtemp()
  • mktemp()
  • tempdir
  • gettempdir()
  • template
  • gettempprefix()
• 10.7. glob — Unix style pathname pattern expansion
  • glob()
  • iglob()
• 10.8. fnmatch — Unix filename pattern matching
  • fnmatch()
  • fnmatchcase()
  • filter()
  • translate()
• 10.9. linecache — Random access to text lines
  • getline()
  • clearcache()
  • checkcache()
• 10.10. shutil — High-level file operations
  • 10.10.1. Directory and files operations
    • copyfileobj()
    • copyfile()
    • copymode()
    • copystat()
    • copy()
    • copy2()
    • ignore_patterns()
    • copytree()
    • rmtree()
    • move()
    • Error
    • 10.10.1.1. copytree example
  • 10.10.2. Archiving operations
    • make_archive()
    • get_archive_formats()
    • register_archive_format()
    • unregister_archive_format()
    • 10.10.2.1. Archiving example
• 10.11. dircache — Cached directory listings
  • reset()
  • listdir()
  • opendir()
  • annotate()
• 10.12. macpath — Mac OS 9 path manipulation functions

See also

Section File Objects

A description of Python’s built-in file objects.

Module os

Operating system interfaces, including functions to work with files at a lower level than the built-in file object.