Given a directory with sub directories, how can I find a file's path?

Question

Let's assume that I have the following nested directories structure:

my_dir
|---- dir_1
|---- dir_2
|---- dir_3
      |---- dir_4
            |---- dir_5
                  |---- dir_6
                        |---- my_file.txt

How can I look if my_file.txt exists in any of the sub-directories of dir_3 (e.g. dir_4, dir_5, dir_6), and if exists how can I get its path? At the moment I tried with:

def file(name, path):
    for r, d, f in os.walk(abspath(path)):
        if name in files:
            return os.path.join(r, n)
    else:
         return 'file not found'

However, the above function is odd. How can I do the same with Pathlib?

Since you're using Python 3, you should take a look at the `pathlib` module. — PM 2Ring, Jun 12 '19 at 07:00
You should spend a little time learning about pathlib. You can probably use `pathlib.glob` to do what you want. Please see https://stackoverflow.com/q/50714469/4014959 — PM 2Ring, Jun 12 '19 at 07:58

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 12 '19 at 06:48

1

delete your 'else' branch, so that you can continue walking the dir tree. then after the for loop, you can return 'file not found'.

answered Jun 12 '19 at 06:48

lyh

56
4

Nagaraju · Answer 2 · 2019-06-12T06:59:26.890

1

Using Linux shell command

import os
cmd = 'find my_dir -name myfile.txt'
os.system(cmd)

This will search for myfile.txt in my_dir directory

or using subprocess module:

import subprocess
subprocess.Popen(["find","my_dir","-name","myfile.txt"])

edited Jun 12 '19 at 06:59

answered Jun 12 '19 at 06:53

Nagaraju

1,853
2
27
46

Given a directory with sub directories, how can I find a file's path?

2 Answers2