Python Standard Library

The glob Module

The glob module generates lists of files matching given patterns, just like the Unix shell.

File patterns are similar to regular expressions, but simpler. An asterisk (*) matches zero or more characters, and a question mark (?) matches exactly one character. You can also use brackets to indicate character ranges, such as [0-9] for a single digit. All other characters match themselves.

glob(pattern) returns a list of all files matching a given pattern. The glob module is demonstrated in Example 2-26.

Example 2-26. Using the glob Module

File: glob-example-1.py

import glob

for file in glob.glob("samples/*.jpg"):
    print file

samples/sample.jpg

Note that glob returns full pathnames, unlike the os.listdir function. glob uses the fnmatch module to do the actual pattern matching.