Searching through my pc to check if i have a file with a certain name using python?

Question

file searching

how would imake a program that would check if my pc had a file with a certain name no matter what type the file is and then print yes or no. For example i would put in a file name then it would print if i had it or not. ive tried similar things but they didnt work for me.

Does this answer your question? [Find a file in python](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1724693/find-a-file-in-python) — KetZoomer, Apr 12 '21 at 16:44

Have a nice day · Answer 1 · 2021-04-12T16:50:32.837

2

You can use the os module for this.

import os

def find(name, path):
    for root, dirs, files in os.walk(path):
        if name in files:
            return os.path.join(root, name) # or you could print 'found' or something

This will find the first match. If it exists, it will return the file path, otherwise it returns None. Note that it is case sensitive.

This was taken from this answer.

edited Apr 12 '21 at 16:50

answered Apr 12 '21 at 16:43

Have a nice day

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where do i specify the name of the file im looking for? thanks for the answer – rocks2260 Apr 12 '21 at 16:45
@rocks2260 When you call the function. Example: `find('name_of_file.file_extension', 'path/to/folder')` If you want to see the results just wrap that in a `print()` statement. – Have a nice day Apr 12 '21 at 16:46
thanks for the help, 1 more quick thing. say i wanted to search in this pc directory so its the whole pc would i put 'This PC' with no slashes. – rocks2260 Apr 12 '21 at 16:50
1

@rocks2260 there's no way to search the whole PC in one shot, you'll have to go to the root of each disk individually: 'c:\\', 'd:\\', etc. – Mark Ransom Apr 12 '21 at 16:55
@rocks2260 like @Mark Ransom said, searching with `C:/` or `D:/` is as low as you can go. – Have a nice day Apr 12 '21 at 16:58
alright, so what would i do to search say downloads? This PC/downloads? – rocks2260 Apr 12 '21 at 17:01
@rocks2260 `C:/Users/Owner/Downloads` probably – Have a nice day Apr 12 '21 at 17:02
@rocks2260 if you can find the folder in the file explorer click here [here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/M8rfp.png) to see the file path. then just copy/paste :) – Have a nice day Apr 12 '21 at 17:08
when i put in C:/Users/Owner/Downloads because of the C: it wont let me put it in ' ' also thanks for all the help – rocks2260 Apr 12 '21 at 17:14
dw i fixed that issue, new one is that def find_files ('Autoclicker.exe', 'E:\coding' ): im getting an invalid syntax at the first ' and the file path is highlighted red along with the '): – rocks2260 Apr 12 '21 at 18:58
@rocks2260 try `'E:\\coding'` or `E:/coding` – Have a nice day Apr 12 '21 at 19:17

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 12 '21 at 16:49

you can also use Pathlib module. The code written using Pathlib will work on any OS.

#pathlib will work on any OS  (linux,windows,macOS)
from pathlib import Path 

 # define the search Path here  '.' means current working directory. you can specify other path like Path('/User/<user_name>')
search_path = Path('.')
# define the file name to be searched here.
file_name = 'test.txt'
#iteratively search glob() will return generator object. It'll be a lot faster.
for file in search_path.glob('**/*'): 
    if file.name == file_name:
        print(f'file found =  {file.absolute()}') #print the file path if file is found
        break

Searching through my pc to check if i have a file with a certain name using python?

2 Answers2