mkdir -p functionality in Python

Question

Is there a way to get functionality similar to mkdir -p on the shell from within Python   I am looking for a solution other than a system call   I am sure the code is less than 20 lines  and I am wondering if someone has already written it

User · Answer

I think Asa s answer is essentially correct  but you could extend it a little to act more like mkdir -p  either   import os  def mkdir path path       if not os access path  os F OK           os mkdirs path    or  import os import errno  def mkdir path path       try          os mkdirs path      except os error  e          if e errno    errno EEXIST              raise   These both handle the case where the path already exists silently but let other errors bubble up

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As mentioned in the other solutions  we want to be able to hit the file system once while mimicking the behaviour of mkdir -p   I don t think that this is possible to do  but we should get as close as possible   Code first  explanation later   import os import errno  def mkdir p path            mkdir -p  in Python         try          os makedirs path      except OSError as exc     Python  gt 2 5         if exc errno    errno EEXIST and os path isdir path               pass         else              raise   As the comments to  tzot s answer indicate there are problems with checking whether you can create a directory before you actually create it  you can t tell whether someone has changed the file system in the meantime   That also fits in with Python s style of asking for forgiveness  not permission   So the first thing we should do is try to make the directory  then if it goes wrong  work out why   As Jacob Gabrielson points out  one of the cases we must look for is the case where a file already exists where we are trying to put the directory     With mkdir -p     touch  tmp foo   mkdir -p  tmp foo mkdir  cannot create directory   tmp foo   File exists   The analogous behaviour in Python would be to raise an exception   So we have to work out if this was the case   Unfortunately  we can t   We get the same error message back from makedirs whether a directory exists  good  or a file exists preventing the creation of the directory  bad    The only way to work out what happened is to inspect the file system again to see if there is a directory there   If there is  then return silently  otherwise raise the exception   The only problem is that the file system may be in a different state now than when makedirs was called   eg  a file existed causing makedirs to fail  but now a directory is in its place   That doesn t really matter that much  because the the function will only exit silently without raising an exception when at the time of the last file system call the directory existed

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Recently  I found this distutils dir util mkpath   In  17   from distutils dir util import mkpath  In  18   mkpath    foo bar   Out 18     foo    foo bar

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This is easier than trapping the exception   import os if not os path exists           os makedirs        Disclaimer This approach requires two system calls which is more susceptible to race conditions under certain environments conditions   If you re writing something more sophisticated than a simple throwaway script running in a controlled environment  you re better off going with the accepted answer that requires only one system call   UPDATE 2012-07-27  I m tempted to delete this answer  but I think there s value in the comment thread below   As such  I m converting it to a wiki

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In Python   3 2  that s  os makedirs path  exist ok True    In earlier versions  use  tzot s answer

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Function declaration   import os def mkdir p filename        try          folder os path dirname filename            if not os path exists folder                 os makedirs folder          return True     except          return False   usage    filename      download 80c16ee665c8 upload backup mysql 2014-12-22 adclient sql 2014-12-22-13-38 sql gz   if  mkdir p filename       print  Created dir   s     os path dirname filename

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import os from os path import join as join paths  def mk dir recursive dir path        if os path isdir dir path           return     h  t   os path split dir path     head tail     if not os path isdir h           mk dir recursive h       new path   join paths h  t      if not os path isdir new path           os mkdir new path    based on  Dave C s answer but with a bug fixed where part of the tree already exists

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import os import tempfile  path   tempfile mktemp dir path  os makedirs path  os rmdir path

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With Pathlib from python3 standard library   Path mypath  mkdir parents True  exist ok True       If parents is true  any missing parents of this path are created as   needed  they are created with the default permissions without taking   mode into account  mimicking the POSIX mkdir -p command     If exist ok is false  the default   an FileExistsError is raised if   the target directory already exists       If exist ok is true  FileExistsError exceptions will be ignored  same   behavior as the POSIX mkdir -p command   but only if the last path   component is not an existing non-directory file       Changed in version 3 5  The exist ok parameter was added

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I ve had success with the following personally  but my function should probably be called something like  ensure this directory exists    def mkdirRecursive dirpath       import os     if os path isdir dirpath   return      h t   os path split dirpath    head tail     if not os path isdir h           mkdirRecursive h       os mkdir join h t     end mkdirRecursive

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For Python   3 5  use pathlib Path mkdir   import pathlib pathlib Path   tmp path to desired directory   mkdir parents True  exist ok True    The exist ok parameter was added in Python 3 5   For Python   3 2  os makedirs has an optional third argument exist ok that  when True  enables the mkdir -p functionality   unless mode is provided and the existing directory has different permissions than the intended ones  in that case  OSError is raised as previously   import os os makedirs   tmp path to desired directory   exist ok True    For even older versions of Python you can use os makedirs and ignore the error   import errno     import os  def mkdir p path       try          os makedirs path      except OSError as exc     Python   2 5         if exc errno    errno EEXIST and os path isdir path               pass         else              raise

User · Answer

mkdir -p gives you an error if the file already exists     touch  tmp foo   mkdir -p  tmp foo mkdir  cannot create directory   tmp foo   File exists   So a refinement to the previous suggestions would be to re-raise the exception if os path isdir returns False  when checking for errno EEXIST     Update  See also this highly similar question  I agree with the accepted answer  and caveats  except I would recommend os path isdir instead of os path exists    Update  Per a suggestion in the comments  the full function would look like   import os def mkdirp directory       if not os path isdir directory           os makedirs directory

[python] mkdir -p functionality in Python

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