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How to use the Pathlib Module in Python | QuickStart Guide for Beginners

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In this quick tutorial, I am going to show you how to use the Pathlib module in Python. If you are new to Python, this will give you a quick introduction to the most widely used Python module for path manipulations. I will show you how to work with file paths & directories and how to list all files and folders in a directory.

📝 Resources:

 

 

👩‍💻 Source Code:

Importing the main class:

from pathlib import Path

Get the home directory

home_dir = Path.home()

Get the path to the current working directory

cwd = Path.cwd()

Get the path to the current Python file (does not work in Jupyter Notebooks)

curr_file = Path(__file__)

Get the first parent folder path

one_above = Path.cwd().parent

Get the Nth parent folder path

mul_above = Path.cwd().parents[0]

Join paths

joined_path = cwd / 'Output'

Create a directory if it does not exist

joined_path.mkdir(exist_ok=True)
# exist_ok: to ignore 'FileExistsError'if the target directory already exists

Check if the path is a folder

joined_path.is_dir()

Check if the path is a file

example_file = cwd / "somefile.txt"

Get the file name

file_name = example_file.name

Get the file name w/o extension

file_name = example_file.stem

Get the file extension

file_extension = example_file.suffix

Iterate over files in a directory

target_dir = cwd / "Sample Files"
for file in target_dir.iterdir():
    print(file)

Iterate over files in a directory combined with suffix

for file in target_dir.iterdir():
    if file.suffix == ".xlsx":
        print(file)

Iterate over files in a directory incl. sub folder(s)

for file in target_dir.rglob("*"):
    print(file)