How can I extract the folder path from file path in Python

Question

I would like to get just the folder path from the full path to a file  For example T  Data DBDesign DBDesign 93 v141b mdb and I would like to get just T  Data DBDesign  excluding the  DBDesign 93 v141b mdb   I have tried something like this  existGDBPath   r T  Data DBDesign DBDesign 93 v141b mdb  wkspFldr   str existGDBPath split       0 -1   print wkspFldr   but it gave me a result like this    T     Data    DBDesign    which is not the result that I require  being T  Data DBDesign   Any ideas on how I can get the path to my file

User · Answer

Anyone trying to do this in the ESRI GIS Table field calculator interface can do this with the Python parser:

PathToContainingFolder =

"\\".join(!FullFilePathWithFileName!.split("\\")[0:-1])

so that

\Users\me\Desktop\New folder\file.txt

becomes

\Users\me\Desktop\New folder

User · Answer

Here is my little utility helper for splitting paths int file  path tokens   import os       usage  file  path   splitPath s  def splitPath s       f   os path basename s      p   s  - len f  -1      return f  p

User · Answer

WITH PATHLIB MODULE  UPDATED ANSWER   One should consider using pathlib for new development   It is in the stdlib for Python3 4  but available on PyPI for earlier versions   This library provides a more object-orented method to manipulate paths  lt opinion gt  and is much easier read and program with  lt  opinion gt     gt  gt  gt  import pathlib  gt  gt  gt  existGDBPath   pathlib Path r T  Data DBDesign DBDesign 93 v141b mdb    gt  gt  gt  wkspFldr   existGDBPath parent  gt  gt  gt  print wkspFldr Path  T  Data DBDesign     WITH OS MODULE  Use the os path module    gt  gt  gt  import os  gt  gt  gt  existGDBPath   r T  Data DBDesign DBDesign 93 v141b mdb   gt  gt  gt  wkspFldr   os path dirname existGDBPath   gt  gt  gt  print wkspFldr   T  Data DBDesign    You can go ahead and assume that if you need to do some sort of filename manipulation it s already been implemented in os path   If not  you ll still probably need to use this module as the building block

User · Answer

You were almost there with your use of the split function  You just needed to join the strings  like follows    gt  gt  gt  import os  gt  gt  gt       join existGDBPath split       0 -1    T   Data  DBDesign    Although  I would recommend using the os path dirname function to do this  you just need to pass the string  and it ll do the work for you  Since  you seem to be on windows  consider using the abspath function too  An example    gt  gt  gt  import os  gt  gt  gt  os path dirname os path abspath existGDBPath    T   Data  DBDesign    If you want both the file name and the directory path after being split  you can use the os path split function which returns a tuple  as follows    gt  gt  gt  import os  gt  gt  gt  os path split os path abspath existGDBPath     T   Data  DBDesign    DBDesign 93 v141b mdb

User · Answer

The built-in submodule os path has a function for that very task   import os os path dirname  T  Data DBDesign DBDesign 93 v141b mdb

User · Answer

Here is the code    import os existGDBPath   r T  Data DBDesign DBDesign 93 v141b mdb  wkspFldr   os path dirname existGDBPath  print wkspFldr   T  Data DBDesign

[python] How can I extract the folder path from file path in Python?

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