Python3 project remove pycache folders and pyc files

Question

What is the BEST way to clear out all the   pycache    folders and  pyc  pyo files from a python3 project  I have seen multiple users suggest the pyclean script bundled with Debian  but this does not remove the folders  I want a simple way to clean up the project before pushing the files to my DVS

User · Answer

macOS  amp  Linux  BSD s find implementation on macOS is different from GNU find - this is compatible with both BSD and GNU find  Start with a globbing implementation  using -name and the -o for or - Put this function in your  bashrc file   pyclean          find   -type f -name    py co   -delete -o -type d -name   pycache   -delete     Then cd to the directory you want to recursively clean  and type pyclean   GNU find-only  This is a GNU find  only  i e  Linux  solution  but I feel it s a little nicer with the regex   pyclean          find   -regex         pycache      py co      -delete     Any platform  using Python 3  On Windows  you probably don t even have find  You do  however  probably have Python 3  which starting in 3 4 has the convenient pathlib module   python3 -Bc  import pathlib   p unlink   for p in pathlib Path      rglob    py co      python3 -Bc  import pathlib   p rmdir   for p in pathlib Path      rglob    pycache         The -B flag tells Python not to write  pyc files   See also the PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE environment variable    The above abuses list comprehensions for looping  but when using python -c  style is rather a secondary concern  Alternatively we could abuse  for example    import     python3 -Bc  for p in   import    pathlib   Path      rglob    py co     p unlink    python3 -Bc  for p in   import    pathlib   Path      rglob    pycache      p rmdir      Critique of an answer  The top answer used to say    find     grep -E     pycache     pyc   pyo      xargs rm -rf    This would seem to be less efficient because it uses three processes  find takes a regular expression  so we don t need a separate invocation of grep  Similarly  it has -delete  so we don t need a separate invocation of rm    and contrary to a comment here  it will delete non-empty directories so long as they get emptied by virtue of the regular expression match   From the xargs man page    find  tmp -depth -name core -type f -delete       Find files named core in or below the directory  tmp and delete them    but more efficiently than in the previous example  because we avoid   the need to use fork 2  and exec 2  to launch rm and we don t need   the extra xargs process

User · Answer

From the project directory type the following   Deleting all  pyc files  find   -path      pyc   -delete  Deleting all  pyo files   find   -path      pyo   -delete  Finally  to delete all    pycache     type   find   -path      pycache    -type d -exec rm -r         If you encounter permission denied error  add sudo at the begining of all the above command

User · Answer

I found the answer myself when I mistyped pyclean as pycclean       No command  pycclean  found  did you mean       Command  py3clean  from package  python3-minimal   main       Command  pyclean  from package  python-minimal   main      pycclean  command not found   Running py3clean   cleaned it up very nicely

User · Answer

You can do it manually with the next command   find     grep -E     pycache     pyc   pyo      xargs rm -rf   This will remove all   pyc files and   pycache   directories recursively in the current directory

User · Answer

Please just go to your terminal then type    rm   pycache     and it will be removed

User · Answer

Since this is a Python 3 project  you only need to delete   pycache   directories -- all  pyc  pyo files are inside them   find   -type d -name   pycache   -exec rm -r         or its simpler form   find   -type d -name   pycache   -delete   which didn t work for me for some reason  files were deleted but directories weren t   so I m including both for the sake of completeness     Alternatively  if you re doing this in a directory that s under revision control  you can tell the RCS to ignore   pycache   folders recursively  Then  at the required moment  just clean up all the ignored files  This will likely be more convenient because there ll probably be more to clean up than just   pycache

User · Answer

This is my alias that works both with Python 2 and Python 3 removing all  pyc  pyo files as well   pycache   directories recursively   alias pyclean  find   -name    py co   -o -name   pycache   -exec rm -rf

User · Answer

Thanks a lot for the other answers  based on them this is what I used for my Debian package s prerm file      bin sh set -e  deb package  package-name  python package  package name   if which pyclean  gt  dev null 2 gt  amp 1  then     py3clean -p  deb package else     dpkg -L  deb package   grep   python package     while read file     do         find   file  -type d -name   pycache   -exec rm -r           done fi

User · Answer

The command I ve used    find   -type d -name     pycache    -exec rm -r       Explains    First finds all   pycache   folders in current directory  Execute rm -r      to delete each folder at step above      signify for placeholder and   to end the command    Edited 1   I m using Linux  to reuse the command I ve added the line below to the    bashrc file   alias rm-pycache  find   -type d -name     pycache    -exec rm -r         Edited 2  If you re using VS Code  you don t need to remove   pycache   manually  You can add the snippet below to settings json file  After that  VS Code will hide all   pycache   folders for you   files exclude                pycache     true     Hope it helps

User · Answer

If you need a permanent solution for keeping Python cache files out of your project directories   Starting with Python 3 8 you can use the environment variable PYTHONPYCACHEPREFIX to define a cache directory for Python   From the Python docs      If this is set  Python will write  pyc files in a mirror directory tree at this path  instead of in pycache directories within the source tree  This is equivalent to specifying the -X pycache prefix PATH option    Example  If you add the following line to your   profile in Linux   export PYTHONPYCACHEPREFIX   HOME  cache cpython     Python won t create the annoying   pycache   directories in your project directory  instead it will put all of them under    cache cpython

User · Answer

Why not just use rm -rf   pycache    Run git add -A afterwards to remove them from your repository and add   pycache    to your  gitignore file

User · Answer

Using PyCharm  To remove Python compiled files   In the Project Tool Window  right-click a project or directory  where Python compiled files should be deleted from  On the context menu  choose Clean Python compiled files    The  pyc files residing in the selected directory are silently deleted

[python] Python3 project remove pycache folders and .pyc files

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