List with all the files in directories &subdirectories with path (Python)

Question

There are a lot of questions like this, and I've actually found a way to do it

for root, dirs, files in os.walk(".", topdown=False):
    for name in files:
        (os.path.join(root, name))

But how to put all those in a single list? I want that function to return a single list with all the paths, how can I do that?

possible duplicate of [Getting a list of all subdirectories in the current directory](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/973473/getting-a-list-of-all-subdirectories-in-the-current-directory) — abhi, Apr 23 '14 at 16:08

CodeManX · Answer 1 · 2014-04-23T16:16:40.320

As a list comprehension, it is as easy as:

filelist = [os.path.join(root, name) for root, dirs, files in os.walk(".", topdown=False) for name in files]

For lazy evaluation, you can turn it into a generator:

import os

filelist_gen = (os.path.join(root, name) for root, dirs, files in os.walk(".", topdown=False) for name in files)

for i, f in enumerate(filelist_gen):
    if i >= 3:
        break
    print(f)

You should use this approach if you will likely not loop over the entire filelist. A list comprehension would create a list of all files before accessing even the first item.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 23 '14 at 16:06

1

Just declare an empty list:

items = []

and then append to it at the end:

for name in files:
    items.append(os.path.join(root, name))

answered Apr 23 '14 at 16:06

anon582847382

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 23 '14 at 16:08

In general, if you have something like:

for x in y:
    some more stuff:
        foo # I have an item here!!

there are two approaches.

The naïve approach is to stick it all in a list immediately:

def all_in_a_list():
    things = []

    for x in y:
        some more stuff:
            things.append(foo) # I have an item here!!

    return things

A more Pythonic approach is to make a generator

def all_things():
    for x in y:
        some more stuff:
            yield foo # I have an item here!!

and turn it to a list if need be at the call-site:

list(all_things())

List with all the files in directories &subdirectories with path (Python)

3 Answers3