Chapter 12. Using the filesystem

 

This chapter covers

  • Managing paths and pathnames
  • Getting information about files
  • Performing filesystem operations
  • Processing all files in a directory subtree

Working with files involves one of two things: basic I/O (described in chapter 13, Reading and writing files”) and working with the filesystem (for example, naming, creating, moving, or referring to files), which is a bit tricky, because different operating systems have different filesystem conventions.

It would be easy enough to learn how to perform basic file I/O without learning all the features Python has provided to simplify cross-platform filesystem interaction—but I wouldn’t recommend it. Instead, read at least the first part of this chapter, which gives you the tools you need to refer to files in a manner that doesn’t depend on your particular operating system. Then, when you use the basic I/O operations, you can open the relevant files in this manner.

12.1. os and os.path vs. pathlib

12.2. Paths and pathnames

12.3. Getting information about files

12.4. More filesystem operations

12.5. Processing all files in a directory subtree

Summary

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