[python] Better way to convert file sizes in Python

I am using a library that reads a file and returns its size in bytes.

This file size is then displayed to the end user; to make it easier for them to understand it, I am explicitly converting the file size to MB by dividing it by 1024.0 * 1024.0. Of course this works, but I am wondering is there a better way to do this in Python?

By better, I mean perhaps a stdlib function that can manipulate sizes according to the type I want. Like if I specify MB, it automatically divides it by 1024.0 * 1024.0. Somethign on these lines.

This question is related to python filesize

The answer is


I wanted 2 way conversion, and I wanted to use Python 3 format() support to be most pythonic. Maybe try datasize library module? https://pypi.org/project/datasize/

$ pip install -qqq datasize
$ python
...
>>> from datasize import DataSize
>>> 'My new {:GB} SSD really only stores {:.2GiB} of data.'.format(DataSize('750GB'),DataSize(DataSize('750GB') * 0.8))
'My new 750GB SSD really only stores 558.79GiB of data.'

Instead of a size divisor of 1024 * 1024 you could use the << bitwise shifting operator, i.e. 1<<20 to get megabytes, 1<<30 to get gigabytes, etc.

In the simplest scenario you can have e.g. a constant MBFACTOR = float(1<<20) which can then be used with bytes, i.e.: megas = size_in_bytes/MBFACTOR.

Megabytes are usually all that you need, or otherwise something like this can be used:

# bytes pretty-printing
UNITS_MAPPING = [
    (1<<50, ' PB'),
    (1<<40, ' TB'),
    (1<<30, ' GB'),
    (1<<20, ' MB'),
    (1<<10, ' KB'),
    (1, (' byte', ' bytes')),
]


def pretty_size(bytes, units=UNITS_MAPPING):
    """Get human-readable file sizes.
    simplified version of https://pypi.python.org/pypi/hurry.filesize/
    """
    for factor, suffix in units:
        if bytes >= factor:
            break
    amount = int(bytes / factor)

    if isinstance(suffix, tuple):
        singular, multiple = suffix
        if amount == 1:
            suffix = singular
        else:
            suffix = multiple
    return str(amount) + suffix

print(pretty_size(1))
print(pretty_size(42))
print(pretty_size(4096))
print(pretty_size(238048577))
print(pretty_size(334073741824))
print(pretty_size(96995116277763))
print(pretty_size(3125899904842624))

## [Out] ###########################
1 byte
42 bytes
4 KB
227 MB
311 GB
88 TB
2 PB

Here is my implementation:

from bisect import bisect

def to_filesize(bytes_num, si=True):
    decade = 1000 if si else 1024
    partitions = tuple(decade ** n for n in range(1, 6))
    suffixes = tuple('BKMGTP')

    i = bisect(partitions, bytes_num)
    s = suffixes[i]

    for n in range(i):
        bytes_num /= decade

    f = '{:.3f}'.format(bytes_num)

    return '{}{}'.format(f.rstrip('0').rstrip('.'), s)

It will print up to three decimals and it strips trailing zeros and periods. The boolean parameter si will toggle usage of 10-based vs. 2-based size magnitude.

This is its counterpart. It allows to write clean configuration files like {'maximum_filesize': from_filesize('10M'). It returns an integer that approximates the intended filesize. I am not using bit shifting because the source value is a floating point number (it will accept from_filesize('2.15M') just fine). Converting it to an integer/decimal would work but makes the code more complicated and it already works as it is.

def from_filesize(spec, si=True):
    decade = 1000 if si else 1024
    suffixes = tuple('BKMGTP')

    num = float(spec[:-1])
    s = spec[-1]
    i = suffixes.index(s)

    for n in range(i):
        num *= decade

    return int(num)

Here's a version that matches the output of ls -lh.

def human_size(num: int) -> str:
    base = 1
    for unit in ['B', 'K', 'M', 'G', 'T', 'P', 'E', 'Z', 'Y']:
        n = num / base
        if n < 9.95 and unit != 'B':
            # Less than 10 then keep 1 decimal place
            value = "{:.1f}{}".format(n, unit)
            return value
        if round(n) < 1000:
            # Less than 4 digits so use this
            value = "{}{}".format(round(n), unit)
            return value
        base *= 1024
    value = "{}{}".format(round(n), unit)
    return value

Here are some easy-to-copy one liners to use if you already know what unit size you want. If you're looking for in a more generic function with a few nice options, see my FEB 2021 update further on...

Bytes

print ('{:,.0f}'.format(os.path.getsize(filepath))+" B")

Kilobits

print ('{:,.0f}'.format(os.path.getsize(filepath)/float(1<<7))+" kb")

Kilobytes

print ('{:,.0f}'.format(os.path.getsize(filepath)/float(1<<10))+" KB")

Megabits

print ('{:,.0f}'.format(os.path.getsize(filepath)/float(1<<17))+" mb")

Megabytes

print ('{:,.0f}'.format(os.path.getsize(filepath)/float(1<<20))+" MB")

Gigabits

print ('{:,.0f}'.format(os.path.getsize(filepath)/float(1<<27))+" gb")

Gigabytes

print ('{:,.0f}'.format(os.path.getsize(filepath)/float(1<<30))+" GB")

Terabytes

print ('{:,.0f}'.format(os.path.getsize(filepath)/float(1<<40))+" TB")

UPDATE FEB 2021 Here are my updated and fleshed-out functions to a) get file/folder size, b) convert into desired units:

from pathlib import Path

def get_path_size(path = Path('.'), recursive=False):
    """
    Gets file size, or total directory size

    Parameters
    ----------
    path: str | pathlib.Path
        File path or directory/folder path

    recursive: bool
        True -> use .rglob i.e. include nested files and directories
        False -> use .glob i.e. only process current directory/folder

    Returns
    -------
    int:
        File size or recursive directory size in bytes
        Use cleverutils.format_bytes to convert to other units e.g. MB
    """
    path = Path(path)
    if path.is_file():
        size = path.stat().st_size
    elif path.is_dir():
        path_glob = path.rglob('*.*') if recursive else path.glob('*.*')
        size = sum(file.stat().st_size for file in path_glob)
    return size


def format_bytes(bytes, unit, SI=False):
    """
    Converts bytes to common units such as kb, kib, KB, mb, mib, MB

    Parameters
    ---------
    bytes: int
        Number of bytes to be converted

    unit: str
        Desired unit of measure for output


    SI: bool
        True -> Use SI standard e.g. KB = 1000 bytes
        False -> Use JEDEC standard e.g. KB = 1024 bytes

    Returns
    -------
    str:
        E.g. "7 MiB" where MiB is the original unit abbreviation supplied
    """
    if unit.lower() in "b bit bits".split():
        return f"{bytes*8} {unit}"
    unitN = unit[0].upper()+unit[1:].replace("s","")  # Normalised
    reference = {"Kb Kib Kibibit Kilobit": (7, 1),
                 "KB KiB Kibibyte Kilobyte": (10, 1),
                 "Mb Mib Mebibit Megabit": (17, 2),
                 "MB MiB Mebibyte Megabyte": (20, 2),
                 "Gb Gib Gibibit Gigabit": (27, 3),
                 "GB GiB Gibibyte Gigabyte": (30, 3),
                 "Tb Tib Tebibit Terabit": (37, 4),
                 "TB TiB Tebibyte Terabyte": (40, 4),
                 "Pb Pib Pebibit Petabit": (47, 5),
                 "PB PiB Pebibyte Petabyte": (50, 5),
                 "Eb Eib Exbibit Exabit": (57, 6),
                 "EB EiB Exbibyte Exabyte": (60, 6),
                 "Zb Zib Zebibit Zettabit": (67, 7),
                 "ZB ZiB Zebibyte Zettabyte": (70, 7),
                 "Yb Yib Yobibit Yottabit": (77, 8),
                 "YB YiB Yobibyte Yottabyte": (80, 8),
                 }
    key_list = '\n'.join(["     b Bit"] + [x for x in reference.keys()]) +"\n"
    if unitN not in key_list:
        raise IndexError(f"\n\nConversion unit must be one of:\n\n{key_list}")
    units, divisors = [(k,v) for k,v in reference.items() if unitN in k][0]
    if SI:
        divisor = 1000**divisors[1]/8 if "bit" in units else 1000**divisors[1]
    else:
        divisor = float(1 << divisors[0])
    value = bytes / divisor
    if value != 1 and len(unitN) > 3:
            unitN += "s" # Create plural unit of measure
    return "{:,.0f}".format(value) + " " + unitN


# Tests 
>>> assert format_bytes(1,"b") == '8 b'
>>> assert format_bytes(1,"bits") == '8 bits'
>>> assert format_bytes(1024, "kilobyte") == "1 Kilobyte"
>>> assert format_bytes(1024, "kB") == "1 KB"
>>> assert format_bytes(7141000, "mb") == '54 Mb'
>>> assert format_bytes(7141000, "mib") == '54 Mib'
>>> assert format_bytes(7141000, "Mb") == '54 Mb'
>>> assert format_bytes(7141000, "MB") == '7 MB'
>>> assert format_bytes(7141000, "mebibytes") == '7 Mebibytes'
>>> assert format_bytes(7141000, "gb") == '0 Gb'
>>> assert format_bytes(1000000, "kB") == '977 KB'
>>> assert format_bytes(1000000, "kB", SI=True) == '1,000 KB'
>>> assert format_bytes(1000000, "kb") == '7,812 Kb'
>>> assert format_bytes(1000000, "kb", SI=True) == '8,000 Kb'
>>> assert format_bytes(125000, "kb") == '977 Kb'
>>> assert format_bytes(125000, "kb", SI=True) == '1,000 Kb'
>>> assert format_bytes(125*1024, "kb") == '1,000 Kb'
>>> assert format_bytes(125*1024, "kb", SI=True) == '1,024 Kb'

Here is what I use:

import math

def convert_size(size_bytes):
   if size_bytes == 0:
       return "0B"
   size_name = ("B", "KB", "MB", "GB", "TB", "PB", "EB", "ZB", "YB")
   i = int(math.floor(math.log(size_bytes, 1024)))
   p = math.pow(1024, i)
   s = round(size_bytes / p, 2)
   return "%s %s" % (s, size_name[i])

NB : size should be sent in Bytes.


Just in case anyone's searching for the reverse of this problem (as I sure did) here's what works for me:

def get_bytes(size, suffix):
    size = int(float(size))
    suffix = suffix.lower()

    if suffix == 'kb' or suffix == 'kib':
        return size << 10
    elif suffix == 'mb' or suffix == 'mib':
        return size << 20
    elif suffix == 'gb' or suffix == 'gib':
        return size << 30

    return False

Here it is:

def convert_bytes(size):
   for x in ['bytes', 'KB', 'MB', 'GB', 'TB']:
       if size < 1024.0:
           return "%3.1f %s" % (size, x)
       size /= 1024.0

   return size

Here is the compact function to calculate size

def GetHumanReadable(size,precision=2):
    suffixes=['B','KB','MB','GB','TB']
    suffixIndex = 0
    while size > 1024 and suffixIndex < 4:
        suffixIndex += 1 #increment the index of the suffix
        size = size/1024.0 #apply the division
    return "%.*f%s"%(precision,size,suffixes[suffixIndex])

For more detailed output and vice versa operation please refer: http://code.activestate.com/recipes/578019-bytes-to-human-human-to-bytes-converter/


Here my two cents, which permits casting up and down, and adds customizable precision:

def convertFloatToDecimal(f=0.0, precision=2):
    '''
    Convert a float to string of decimal.
    precision: by default 2.
    If no arg provided, return "0.00".
    '''
    return ("%." + str(precision) + "f") % f

def formatFileSize(size, sizeIn, sizeOut, precision=0):
    '''
    Convert file size to a string representing its value in B, KB, MB and GB.
    The convention is based on sizeIn as original unit and sizeOut
    as final unit. 
    '''
    assert sizeIn.upper() in {"B", "KB", "MB", "GB"}, "sizeIn type error"
    assert sizeOut.upper() in {"B", "KB", "MB", "GB"}, "sizeOut type error"
    if sizeIn == "B":
        if sizeOut == "KB":
            return convertFloatToDecimal((size/1024.0), precision)
        elif sizeOut == "MB":
            return convertFloatToDecimal((size/1024.0**2), precision)
        elif sizeOut == "GB":
            return convertFloatToDecimal((size/1024.0**3), precision)
    elif sizeIn == "KB":
        if sizeOut == "B":
            return convertFloatToDecimal((size*1024.0), precision)
        elif sizeOut == "MB":
            return convertFloatToDecimal((size/1024.0), precision)
        elif sizeOut == "GB":
            return convertFloatToDecimal((size/1024.0**2), precision)
    elif sizeIn == "MB":
        if sizeOut == "B":
            return convertFloatToDecimal((size*1024.0**2), precision)
        elif sizeOut == "KB":
            return convertFloatToDecimal((size*1024.0), precision)
        elif sizeOut == "GB":
            return convertFloatToDecimal((size/1024.0), precision)
    elif sizeIn == "GB":
        if sizeOut == "B":
            return convertFloatToDecimal((size*1024.0**3), precision)
        elif sizeOut == "KB":
            return convertFloatToDecimal((size*1024.0**2), precision)
        elif sizeOut == "MB":
            return convertFloatToDecimal((size*1024.0), precision)

Add TB, etc, as you wish.


UNITS = {1000: ['KB', 'MB', 'GB'],
            1024: ['KiB', 'MiB', 'GiB']}

def approximate_size(size, flag_1024_or_1000=True):
    mult = 1024 if flag_1024_or_1000 else 1000
    for unit in UNITS[mult]:
        size = size / mult
        if size < mult:
            return '{0:.3f} {1}'.format(size, unit)

approximate_size(2123, False)