Working with Files on Disk
Most of the key file-manipulation
functions live in the os
module and an associated module called
os.path
. To provide a degree of platform
independence, os loads in the right module for
your platform. os provides basic file-handling
functions, and os.path handles operations on paths
and filenames. On Windows, these modules are called
nt
and
ntpath respectively, although they should always
be referred to as os and
os.path. The functions in the
os module generally accept the same arguments as
their corresponding MS-DOS commands. Table 17.1
depicts the os module’s file and directory
functions.
|
Module and Function |
Description |
os.getcwd() |
Gets the current working directory. |
os.chdir(
|
Changes the current working directory. |
os.rmdir(
|
Removes a directory, if allowed. |
os.mkdir(
|
Creates a directory, supplies either an absolute path or a subdirectory name to go under the current directory. |
os.exists(
|
Says if something exists, but doesn’t say if it’s a file or directory. |
os.isdir(
|
Says that a directory exists. |
os.isfile(
|
Says that a file exists. |
os.listdir(
|
Returns a list of the files and directories within the given directory. |
glob.glob(
|
Returns a list of files matching the given pattern (using expressions
such as |