pros and cons between os path exists vs os path isdir

Question

I m checking to see if a directory exists  but I noticed I m using os path exists instead of os path isdir   Both work just fine  but I m curious as to what the advantages are for using isdir instead of exists

User · Answer

Just like it sounds like  if the path exists  but is a file and not a directory  isdir will return False  Meanwhile  exists will return True in both cases

User · Answer

os path exists path    Returns True if path refers to an existing path  An existing path can   be regular files    http   en wikipedia org wiki Unix file types Regular file   but also   special files  e g  a directory   So in essence this function returns   true if the path provided exists in the filesystem in whatever form    notwithstanding a few exceptions such as broken symlinks        os path isdir path    in turn will only return true when the path points to a directory

User · Answer

Most of the time  it is the same   But  path can exist physically whereas path exists   returns False  This is the case if os stat   returns False for this file   If path exists physically  then path isdir   will always return True  This does not depend on platform

User · Answer

os path isdir   checks if the path exists and is a directory and returns TRUE for the case   Similarly  os path isfile   checks if the path exists and is a file and returns TRUE for the case   And  os path exists    checks if the path exists and doesn   t care if the path points to a file or a directory and returns TRUE in either of the cases

User · Answer

os path exists will also return True if there s a regular file with that name    os path isdir will only return True if that path exists and is a directory  or a symbolic link to a directory

[python] pros and cons between os.path.exists vs os.path.isdir

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