Using Python to execute a command on every file in a folder

Question

I m trying to create a Python script that would     Look into the folder   input  For each video in that folder  run a mencoder command  to transcode them to something playable on my phone  Once mencoder has finished his run  delete the original video    That doesn t seem too hard  but I suck at python     Any ideas on what the script should look like    Bonus question   Should I use     os system   or     subprocess call      Subprocess call seems to allow for a more readable script  since I can write the command like this       cmdLine     mencoder                sourceVideo                -ovc                 copy                 -oac                 copy                 -ss                 00 02 54                 -endpos                  00 00 54                 -o                destinationVideo    EDIT   Ok  that works    import os  subprocess  bitrate    100  mencoder    C   Program Files   utilitaires  MPlayer-1 0rc2  mencoder exe  inputdir    C   Documents and Settings  Administrator  Desktop  input  outputdir    C   Documents and Settings  Administrator  Desktop  output   for fichier in os listdir inputdir       print  fichier      fichier     sourceVideo   inputdir          fichier     destinationVideo   outputdir          fichier  -4      mp4       commande    mencoder                  -of                   lavf                                        -mc                   0                   sourceVideo                  -o                  destinationVideo       subprocess call commande   os remove sourceVideo  raw input  Press Enter to exit     I ve removed the mencoder command  for clarity and because I m still working on it   Thanks to everyone for your input

User · Accepted Answer

To find all the filenames use os listdir     Then you loop over the filenames  Like so   import os for filename in os listdir  dirname         callthecommandhere blablahbla  filename  foo    If you prefer subprocess  use subprocess   -

User · Answer

Python might be overkill for this   for file in    do mencoder -some options  file  rm -f  file   done

User · Answer

The new recommend way in Python3 is to use pathlib  from pathlib import Path  mydir   Path  quot path to my dir quot   for file in mydir glob    mp4        print file name        do your stuff  Instead of   mp4 you can use any filter  even a recursive one like      mp4  If you want to use more than one extension  you can simply iterate all with   or       recursive  and check every file s extension with file name endswith    mp4     webp     avi     wmv     mov

User · Answer

Or you could use the os path walk function  which does more work for you than just os walk   A stupid example   def walk func blah args  dirname names       print     join   In   dirname    called with   blah args       for name in names          print  Walked on     name  if   name         main         import os path     directory            arguments     args go here       os path walk directory walk func arguments

User · Answer

I had a similar problem  with a lot of help from the web and this post I made a small application  my target is VCD and SVCD and I don t delete the source but I reckon it will be fairly easy to adapt to your own needs   It can convert 1 video and cut it or can convert all videos in a folder  rename them and put them in a subfolder  VCD   I also add a small interface  hope someone else find it useful   I put the code and file in here btw  http   tequilaphp wordpress com 2010 08 27 learning-python-making-a-svcd-gui

User · Answer

Use os walk to iterate recursively over directory content   import os  root dir        for directory  subdirectories  files in os walk root dir       for file in files          print os path join directory  file    No real difference between os system and subprocess call here - unless you have to deal with strangely named files  filenames including spaces  quotation marks and so on    If this is the case  subprocess call is definitely better  because you don t need to do any shell-quoting on file names   os system is better when you need to accept any valid shell command  e g  received from user in the configuration file

User · Answer

AVI to MPG  pick your extensions    files   os listdir   input   for sourceVideo in files      if sourceVideo -4        avi          continue     destinationVideo   sourceVideo  -4      mpg      cmdLine     mencoder   sourceVideo   -ovc    copy    -oac    copy    -ss            00 02 54    -endpos    00 00 54    -o   destinationVideo      output1   Popen cmdLine  stdout PIPE  communicate   0      print output1     output2   Popen   del   sourceVideo   stdout PIPE  communicate   0      print output2

[python] Using Python to execute a command on every file in a folder

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