A Better Way To List Files In A Directory In Python

This is the function to use:

#+NAME: list_dir #+begin_src python

import os import glob

def list_dir(root_dir, *, sub_dir=''): return_value = [] root_dir_full = os.path.realpath(os.path.join(root_dir)) dir_to_process = os.path.join(root_dir_full, sub_dir) file_list = [ file for file in glob.glob(f"{dir_to_process}/*") if os.path.isfile(file) ] for file in file_list: name_with_extension = os.path.basename(file) name_without_extension = os.path.splitext(name_with_extension)[0] extension = os.path.splitext(name_with_extension)[1].replace('.', '') return_value.append( { "root_dir": root_dir_full, "sub_dir": sub_dir, "name_with_extension": name_with_extension, "name_without_extension": name_without_extension, "extension": extension, "full_path": file } ) sub_dir_list = [ directory for directory in glob.glob( f"{dir_to_process}/*" ) if os.path.isdir(directory) ] for sub_dir_full_path in sub_dir_list: base_sub_dir = sub_dir_full_path.replace(f'{root_dir_full}/', '') tmp_list = list_dir(root_dir=root_dir_full, sub_dir=base_sub_dir) for item in tmp_list: return_value.append(item) return return_value

#+end_src

Code

from pprint import pprint

  <<list_dir>>

  the_files = list_dir("/Users/alan/Desktop/yttest")

  pprint(the_files)

Results

[{'extension': 'html',
    'full_path': '/Users/alan/Desktop/yttest/index.html',
    'name_with_extension': 'index.html',
    'name_without_extension': 'index',
    'root_dir': '/Users/alan/Desktop/yttest',
    'sub_dir': ''}]

_NOTE: This is still a draft in terms of the prose, but the code is tested and working. Still need to deal with hidden files though. Also need to set a flag to not go recursive_

Getting a list of files always feels like a pain. I wrote a JavaScript function a while ago to make it easier. It returns an array with details of the files.

I made a python version that does the same thing. The output look something like this:

Code

[
  {
    'extension': 'txt',
    'full_path': '/Users/alan/list-dir-via-walk/samples/3/a.txt',
    'name_with_extension': 'a.txt',
    'name_without_extension': 'a',
    'root_dir': '/Users/alan/list-dir-via-walk/samples/3',
    'sub_dir': ''
  },
 {
    'extension': 'txt',
    'full_path': '/Users/alan/list-dir-via-walk/samples/3/3_lower_1/b.txt',
    'name_with_extension': 'b.txt',
    'name_without_extension': 'b',
    'root_dir': '/Users/alan/list-dir-via-walk/samples/3',
    'sub_dir': '3_lower_1'
  },
  {
    'extension': 'txt',
    'full_path': '/Users/alan/list-dir-via-walk/samples/3/3_lower_1/3_lower_2/c.txt',
    'name_with_extension': 'c.txt',
    'name_without_extension': 'c',
    'root_dir': '/Users/alan/list-dir-via-walk/samples/3',
    'sub_dir': '3_lower_1/3_lower_2'
  }
]

That makes it easy to get to individual files by name or path, with or without extension.

Here's the code