Get a filtered list of files in a directory

Question

I am trying to get a list of files in a directory using Python  but I do not want a list of ALL the files   What I essentially want is the ability to do something like the following but using Python and not executing ls   ls 145592  jpg   If there is no built-in method for this  I am currently thinking of writing a for loop to iterate through the results of an os listdir   and to append all the matching files to a new list   However  there are a lot of files in that directory and therefore I am hoping there is a more efficient method  or a built-in method

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glob glob   is definitely the way to do it  as per Ignacio   However  if you do need more complicated matching  you can do it with a list comprehension and re match    something like so   files    f for f in os listdir      if re match r  0-9      jpg   f     More flexible  but as you note  less efficient

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Preliminary code  import glob import fnmatch import pathlib import os  pattern      py  path         Solution 1 - use  glob     lookup in current dir glob glob pattern   In  2   glob glob pattern  Out 2     wsgi py    manage py    tasks py     Solution 2 - use  os     fnmatch   Variant 2 1 - Lookup in current dir    lookup in current dir fnmatch filter os listdir path   pattern   In  3   fnmatch filter os listdir path   pattern  Out 3     wsgi py    manage py    tasks py     Variant 2 2 - Lookup recursive    lookup recursive for dirpath  dirnames  filenames in os walk path        if not filenames          continue      pythonic files   fnmatch filter filenames  pattern      if pythonic files          for file in pythonic files              print         format dirpath  file     Result    wsgi py   manage py   tasks py   temp temp py   apps diaries urls py   apps diaries signals py   apps diaries actions py   apps diaries querysets py   apps library tests test forms py   apps library migrations 0001 initial py   apps polls views py   apps polls formsets py   apps polls reports py   apps polls admin py   Solution 3 - use  pathlib     lookup in current dir path    pathlib Path      tuple path  glob pattern      lookup recursive tuple path  rglob pattern     Notes    Tested on the Python 3 4 The module  pathlib  was added only in the Python 3 4 The Python 3 5 added a feature for recursive lookup with glob glob https   docs python org 3 5 library glob html glob glob  Since my machine is installed with Python 3 4  I have not tested that

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import os  dir   path to dir   x 0      f for x in os walk dir  for f in x 2  if f endswith   jpg      This will give you a list of jpg files with their full path  You can replace x 0      f with f for just filenames  You can also replace f endswith   jpg   with whatever string condition you wish

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Another option    gt  gt  gt  import os  fnmatch  gt  gt  gt  fnmatch filter os listdir          py     manage py     https   docs python org 3 library fnmatch html

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You can use subprocess check ouput   as  import subprocess  list files   subprocess check output  ls 145992  jpg   shell True     Of course  the string between quotes can be anything you want to execute in the shell  and store the output

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Filenames with  jpg  and  png  extensions in  path to images    import os accepted extensions     jpg    png   filenames    fn for fn in os listdir  path to images   if fn split      -1  in accepted extensions

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you might also like a more high-level approach  I have implemented and packaged as findtools    from findtools find files import  find files  Match      Recursively find all   txt files in    home    txt files pattern   Match filetype  f   name    txt   found files   find files path   home   match txt files pattern   for found file in found files      print found file   can be installed with  pip install findtools

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Keep it simple   import os relevant path     path to folder   included extensions     jpg   jpeg    bmp    png    gif   file names    fn for fn in os listdir relevant path                if any fn endswith ext  for ext in included extensions     I prefer this form of list comprehensions because it reads well in English   I read the fourth line as    For each fn in os listdir for my path  give me only the ones that match any one of my included extensions   It may be hard for novice python programmers to really get used to using list comprehensions for filtering  and it can have some memory overhead for very large data sets  but for listing a directory and other simple string filtering tasks  list comprehensions lead to more clean documentable code   The only thing about this design is that it doesn t protect you against making the mistake of passing a string instead of a list   For example if you accidentally convert a string to a list and end up checking against all the characters of a string  you could end up getting a slew of false positives   But it s better to have a problem that s easy to fix than a solution that s hard to understand

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Filter with glob module   Import glob  import glob   Wild Cards   files glob glob  data     print files   Out     data ks 10000 0    data ks 1000 0    data ks 100 0    data ks 100 1    data ks 100 2    data ks 106 0    data ks 19 0    data ks 200 0    data ks 200 1     data ks 300 0    data ks 30 0    data ks 400 0    data ks 40 0    data ks 45 0     data ks 4 0    data ks 500 0    data ks 50 0    data ks 50 1    data ks 60 0     data ks 82 0    data ks lecture dp 1    data ks lecture dp 2     Fiter extension  txt   files   glob glob   home ach     txt     A single character  glob glob   home ach file  txt     Number Ranges  glob glob   home ach   0-9       Alphabet Ranges  glob glob   home ach  a-c

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How about str split    Nothing to import   import os  image names    f for f in os listdir path  if len f split   jpg       2

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import glob  jpgFilenamesList   glob glob  145592  jpg    See glob in python documenttion

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use os walk to  recursively list your files  import os root     home  pattern    145992  alist filter     jpg   bmp   png   gif    path os path join root  mydir to scan   for r d f in os walk path       for file in f          if file -3   in alist filter and pattern in file              print os path join root file

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You can define pattern and check for it  Here I have taken both start and end pattern and looking for them in the filename  FILES contains the list of all the files in a directory  import os PATTERN START    quot 145592 quot  PATTERN END    quot  jpg quot  CURRENT DIR   os path dirname os path realpath   file     for r d FILES in os walk CURRENT DIR       for FILE in FILES          if PATTERN START in FILE startwith PATTERN START  and PATTERN END in FILE endswith PATTERN END               print FILE

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You can use pathlib that is available in Python standard library 3 4 and above   from pathlib import Path  files    f for f in Path cwd   iterdir   if f match  145592  jpg

[python] Get a filtered list of files in a directory

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