December 5, 2017

List directory file names and count in Python

By Mohammed Abualrob Code Snippets 0 Comments

Introduction

Given a directory path on the file system, the following Python code snippets retrieve a list of file names and total count using different methods. You may use the one that best suite your needs or find it more elegant. Let us get started…

Using glob module

In this example, we are going to use the glob module to retrieve all text files in a given directory. The glob module allows us to scan files using regular expression syntax which is a very powerful technique. This technique provides full path file names along with file count:

# import glob module
import glob
print("--------- Using Glob Module *")
# Match all files that end with txt extension
files = glob.glob('/Path/to/dir/*.txt')
for fn in files:
    print(fn)
print("count = {}".format(len(files)))

# Lists all files that looks like (ex. 1.txt)
print("--------- Using Glob Module ?")
files = glob.glob('/Path/to/dir/?.txt')
for fn in files:
    print(fn)
print("count = {}".format(len(files)))

# import glob module

import glob

print("--------- Using Glob Module *")

# Match all files that end with txt extension

files = glob.glob('/Path/to/dir/*.txt')

for fn in files:

print(fn)

print("count = {}".format(len(files)))

# Lists all files that looks like (ex. 1.txt)

print("--------- Using Glob Module ?")

files = glob.glob('/Path/to/dir/?.txt')

for fn in files:

print(fn)

print("count = {}".format(len(files)))

Using os module

We can manually find file count in a directory using os.listdir. In this case, only file name (not full path) is printed. Let us see how…

# os module is needed
import os
print("--------- Using os.listdir")
n = 0
files = os.listdir('/Path/to/dir')
for fn in files:
    if fn.endswith('.txt'):
        n += 1
        print(fn)
print("count = {}".format(n))

# os module is needed

import os

print("--------- Using os.listdir")

n = 0

files = os.listdir('/Path/to/dir')

for fn in files:

if fn.endswith('.txt'):

n += 1

print(fn)

print("count = {}".format(n))

List comprehensions syntax

If you like elegant code, you may use list comprehensions with os.listdir. Take a look…

# os module is needed
import os
print("--------- Using list comprehensions")
files = [fn for fn in os.listdir('/Path/to/dir/') if fn.endswith('.txt')]
print(files)
print("count = {}".format(len(files)))

# os module is needed

import os

print("--------- Using list comprehensions")

files = [fn for fn in os.listdir('/Path/to/dir/') if fn.endswith('.txt')]

print(files)

print("count = {}".format(len(files)))

Using os.walk

If you want to recursively scan a directory for files and directories, you may use os.walk. Take a look…

# os module is needed
import os
print("--------- Using os.walk")
n = 0
for r, d, files in os.walk('/Path/to/dir/'):
    n+= len(files)
    print(files)

print("count = {}".format(n))

# os module is needed

import os

print("--------- Using os.walk")

n = 0

for r, d, files in os.walk('/Path/to/dir/'):

n+= len(files)

print(files)

print("count = {}".format(n))

Summary

Here is a short summary of the Python syntax used…

Method	Syntax
glob module	glob.glob('/Path/to/dir/*.txt')
os module listdir	os.listdir('/Path/to/dir')
os module walk	os.walk('/Path/to/dir/')

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List directory file names and count in Python

Introduction

Using glob module

Using os module

List comprehensions syntax

Using os.walk

Summary

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Mohammed Abualrob

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