How to get all of the immediate subdirectories in Python

Question

I m trying to write a simple Python script that will copy a index tpl to index html in all of the subdirectories  with a few exceptions     I m getting bogged down by trying to get the list of subdirectories

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I did some speed testing on various functions to return the full path to all current subdirectories   tl dr   Always use scandir     list subfolders with paths    f path for f in os scandir path  if f is dir     Bonus  With scandir you can also simply only get folder names by using f name instead of f path   This  as well as all other functions below  will not use natural sorting  This means results will be sorted like this  1  10  2  To get natural sorting  1  2  10   please have a look at https   stackoverflow com a 48030307 2441026        Results  scandir is  3x faster than walk  32x faster than listdir  with filter   35x faster than Pathlib and 36x faster than listdir and 37x     faster than glob   Scandir            0 977 Walk               3 011 Listdir  filter   31 288 Pathlib           34 075 Listdir           35 501 Glob              36 277   Tested with W7x64  Python 3 8 1  Folder with 440 subfolders  In case you wonder if listdir could be speed up by not doing os path join   twice  yes  but the difference is basically nonexistent   Code   import os import pathlib import timeit import glob  path   r  lt example path gt      def a        list subfolders with paths    f path for f in os scandir path  if f is dir          print len list subfolders with paths     def b        list subfolders with paths    os path join path  f  for f in os listdir path  if os path isdir os path join path  f          print len list subfolders with paths     def c        list subfolders with paths          for root  dirs  files in os walk path           for dir in dirs              list subfolders with paths append  os path join root  dir            break       print len list subfolders with paths     def d        list subfolders with paths   glob glob path                print len list subfolders with paths     def e        list subfolders with paths   list filter os path isdir   os path join path  f  for f in os listdir path           print len list list subfolders with paths      def f        p   pathlib Path path      list subfolders with paths    x for x in p iterdir   if x is dir          print len list subfolders with paths      print f Scandir            timeit timeit a  number 1000   3f    print f Listdir            timeit timeit b  number 1000   3f    print f Walk               timeit timeit c  number 1000   3f    print f Glob               timeit timeit d  number 1000   3f    print f Listdir  filter    timeit timeit e  number 1000   3f    print f Pathlib            timeit timeit f  number 1000   3f

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import glob import os  def child dirs path        cd   os getcwd            save the current working directory      os chdir path             change directory       dirs   glob glob          get all the subdirectories      os chdir cd               change directory to the script original location      return dirs   The child dirs function takes a path a directory and returns a list of the immediate subdirectories in it   dir      -- dir 1   -- dir 2  child dirs  dir   - gt    dir 1    dir 2

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os walk is your friend in this situation   Straight from the documentation      walk   generates the file names in a directory tree  by walking the tree either top down or bottom up  For each directory in the tree rooted at directory top  including top itself   it yields a 3-tuple  dirpath  dirnames  filenames

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One liner using pathlib   list subfolders with paths    p for p in pathlib Path path  iterdir   if p is dir

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Why has no one mentioned glob  glob lets you use Unix-style pathname expansion  and is my go to function for almost everything that needs to find more than one path name  It makes it very easy   from glob import glob paths   glob         Note that glob will return the directory with the final slash  as unix would  while most path based solutions will omit the final slash

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I just wrote some code to move vmware virtual machines around  and ended up using os path and shutil to accomplish file copying between sub-directories   def copy client files  file src  file dst       for file in os listdir file src               print  Copying file   s    file             shutil copy os path join file src  file   os path join file dst  file     It s not terribly elegant  but it does work

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I have to mention the path py library  which I use very often   Fetching the immediate subdirectories become as simple as that   my dir dirs    The full working example is   from path import Path  my directory   Path  path to my directory    subdirs   my directory dirs        NB  my directory still can be manipulated as a string  since Path is a subclass of string  but providing a bunch of useful methods for manipulating paths

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import os def get immediate subdirectories a dir       return  name for name in os listdir a dir              if os path isdir os path join a dir  name

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Check  Getting a list of all subdirectories in the current directory    Here s a Python 3 version   import os  dir list   next os walk       1   print dir list

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import pathlib   def list dir dir       path   pathlib Path dir      dir          try          for item in path iterdir                if item is dir                    dir append item          return dir     except FileNotFoundError          print  Invalid directory

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import os  os path   To get  full-path  immediate sub-directories in a directory   def SubDirPath  d       return filter os path isdir   os path join d f  for f in os listdir d      To get the latest  newest  sub-directory   def LatestDirectory  d       return max SubDirPath d   key os path getmtime

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Here s one way   import os import shutil  def copy over path  from name  to name     for path  dirname  fnames in os walk path       for fname in fnames        if fname    from name          shutil copy os path join path  from name   os path join path  to name     copy over       index tpl    index html

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Using Twisted s FilePath module   from twisted python filepath import FilePath  def subdirs pathObj       for subpath in pathObj walk            if subpath isdir                yield subpath  if   name         main         for subdir in subdirs FilePath                print  Subdirectory    subdir   Since some commenters have asked what the advantages of using Twisted s libraries for this is  I ll go a bit beyond the original question here     There s some improved documentation in a branch that explains the advantages of FilePath  you might want to read that   More specifically in this example  unlike the standard library version  this function can be implemented with no imports   The  subdirs  function is totally generic  in that it operates on nothing but its argument   In order to copy and move the files using the standard library  you need to depend on the  open  builtin   listdir   perhaps  isdir  or  os walk  or  shutil copy    Maybe  os path join  too   Not to mention the fact that you need a string passed an argument to identify the actual file   Let s take a look at the full implementation which will copy each directory s  index tpl  to  index html    def copyTemplates topdir       for subdir in subdirs topdir           tpl   subdir child  index tpl           if tpl exists                tpl copyTo subdir child  index html      The  subdirs  function above can work on any FilePath-like object   Which means  among other things  ZipPath objects   Unfortunately ZipPath is read-only right now  but it could be extended to support writing   You can also pass your own objects for testing purposes   In order to test the os path-using APIs suggested here  you have to monkey with imported names and implicit dependencies and generally perform black magic to get your tests to work   With FilePath  you do something like this   class MyFakePath      def child self  name            Return an appropriate child object       def walk self            Return an iterable of MyFakePath objects       def exists self            Return true or false  as appropriate to the test       def isdir self            Return true or false  as appropriate to the test      subdirs MyFakePath

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def get folders in directories recursively directory  index 0       folder list   list       parent directory   directory      for path  subdirs    in os walk directory           if not index              for sdirs in subdirs                  folder path    quot       quot  format path  sdirs                  folder list append folder path          elif path len parent directory    count        1    index              for sdirs in subdirs                  folder path    quot       quot  format path  sdirs                  folder list append folder path       return folder list  The following function can be called as  get folders in directories recursively directory  index 1  - gt  gives the list of folders in first level get folders in directories recursively directory  - gt  gives all the sub folders

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This method nicely does it all in one go   from glob import glob subd    s rstrip      for s in glob parent dir

[python] How to get all of the immediate subdirectories in Python

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