pathlib
— Object-oriented filesystem paths¶
New in version 3.4.
Source code: Lib/pathlib.py
This module offers classes representing filesystem paths with semantics appropriate for different operating systems. Path classes are divided between pure paths, which provide purely computational operations without I/O, and concrete paths, which inherit from pure paths but also provide I/O operations.
If you’ve never used this module before or just aren’t sure which class is
right for your task, Path
is most likely what you need. It instantiates
a concrete path for the platform the code is running on.
Pure paths are useful in some special cases; for example:
If you want to manipulate Windows paths on a Unix machine (or vice versa). You cannot instantiate a
WindowsPath
when running on Unix, but you can instantiatePureWindowsPath
.You want to make sure that your code only manipulates paths without actually accessing the OS. In this case, instantiating one of the pure classes may be useful since those simply don’t have any OS-accessing operations.
See also
PEP 428: The pathlib module – object-oriented filesystem paths.
See also
For low-level path manipulation on strings, you can also use the
os.path
module.
Basic use¶
Importing the main class:
>>> from pathlib import Path
Listing subdirectories:
>>> p = Path('.')
>>> [x for x in p.iterdir() if x.is_dir()]
[PosixPath('.hg'), PosixPath('docs'), PosixPath('dist'),
PosixPath('__pycache__'), PosixPath('build')]
Listing Python source files in this directory tree:
>>> list(p.glob('**/*.py'))
[PosixPath('test_pathlib.py'), PosixPath('setup.py'),
PosixPath('pathlib.py'), PosixPath('docs/conf.py'),
PosixPath('build/lib/pathlib.py')]
Navigating inside a directory tree:
>>> p = Path('/etc')
>>> q = p / 'init.d' / 'reboot'
>>> q
PosixPath('/etc/init.d/reboot')
>>> q.resolve()
PosixPath('/etc/rc.d/init.d/halt')
Querying path properties:
>>> q.exists()
True
>>> q.is_dir()
False
Opening a file:
>>> with q.open() as f: f.readline()
...
'#!/bin/bash\n'
Pure paths¶
Pure path objects provide path-handling operations which don’t actually access a filesystem. There are three ways to access these classes, which we also call flavours:
-
class
pathlib.
PurePath
(*pathsegments)¶ A generic class that represents the system’s path flavour (instantiating it creates either a
PurePosixPath
or aPureWindowsPath
):>>> PurePath('setup.py') # Running on a Unix machine PurePosixPath('setup.py')
Each element of pathsegments can be either a string representing a path segment, an object implementing the
os.PathLike
interface which returns a string, or another path object:>>> PurePath('foo', 'some/path', 'bar') PurePosixPath('foo/some/path/bar') >>> PurePath(Path('foo'), Path('bar')) PurePosixPath('foo/bar')
When pathsegments is empty, the current directory is assumed:
>>> PurePath() PurePosixPath('.')
When several absolute paths are given, the last is taken as an anchor (mimicking
os.path.join()
’s behaviour):>>> PurePath('/etc', '/usr', 'lib64') PurePosixPath('/usr/lib64') >>> PureWindowsPath('c:/Windows', 'd:bar') PureWindowsPath('d:bar')
However, in a Windows path, changing the local root doesn’t discard the previous drive setting:
>>> PureWindowsPath('c:/Windows', '/Program Files') PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files')
Spurious slashes and single dots are collapsed, but double dots (
'..'
) are not, since this would change the meaning of a path in the face of symbolic links:>>> PurePath('foo//bar') PurePosixPath('foo/bar') >>> PurePath('foo/./bar') PurePosixPath('foo/bar') >>> PurePath('foo/../bar') PurePosixPath('foo/../bar')
(a naïve approach would make
PurePosixPath('foo/../bar')
equivalent toPurePosixPath('bar')
, which is wrong iffoo
is a symbolic link to another directory)Pure path objects implement the
os.PathLike
interface, allowing them to be used anywhere the interface is accepted.Changed in version 3.6: Added support for the
os.PathLike
interface.
-
class
pathlib.
PurePosixPath
(*pathsegments)¶ A subclass of
PurePath
, this path flavour represents non-Windows filesystem paths:>>> PurePosixPath('/etc') PurePosixPath('/etc')
pathsegments is specified similarly to
PurePath
.
-
class
pathlib.
PureWindowsPath
(*pathsegments)¶ A subclass of
PurePath
, this path flavour represents Windows filesystem paths:>>> PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files/') PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files')
pathsegments is specified similarly to
PurePath
.
Regardless of the system you’re running on, you can instantiate all of these classes, since they don’t provide any operation that does system calls.
General properties¶
Paths are immutable and hashable. Paths of a same flavour are comparable and orderable. These properties respect the flavour’s case-folding semantics:
>>> PurePosixPath('foo') == PurePosixPath('FOO')
False
>>> PureWindowsPath('foo') == PureWindowsPath('FOO')
True
>>> PureWindowsPath('FOO') in { PureWindowsPath('foo') }
True
>>> PureWindowsPath('C:') < PureWindowsPath('d:')
True
Paths of a different flavour compare unequal and cannot be ordered:
>>> PureWindowsPath('foo') == PurePosixPath('foo')
False
>>> PureWindowsPath('foo') < PurePosixPath('foo')
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: '<' not supported between instances of 'PureWindowsPath' and 'PurePosixPath'
Operators¶
The slash operator helps create child paths, similarly to os.path.join()
:
>>> p = PurePath('/etc')
>>> p
PurePosixPath('/etc')
>>> p / 'init.d' / 'apache2'
PurePosixPath('/etc/init.d/apache2')
>>> q = PurePath('bin')
>>> '/usr' / q
PurePosixPath('/usr/bin')
A path object can be used anywhere an object implementing os.PathLike
is accepted:
>>> import os
>>> p = PurePath('/etc')
>>> os.fspath(p)
'/etc'
The string representation of a path is the raw filesystem path itself (in native form, e.g. with backslashes under Windows), which you can pass to any function taking a file path as a string:
>>> p = PurePath('/etc')
>>> str(p)
'/etc'
>>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files')
>>> str(p)
'c:\\Program Files'
Similarly, calling bytes
on a path gives the raw filesystem path as a
bytes object, as encoded by os.fsencode()
:
>>> bytes(p)
b'/etc'
Note
Calling bytes
is only recommended under Unix. Under Windows,
the unicode form is the canonical representation of filesystem paths.
Accessing individual parts¶
To access the individual “parts” (components) of a path, use the following property:
-
PurePath.
parts
¶ A tuple giving access to the path’s various components:
>>> p = PurePath('/usr/bin/python3') >>> p.parts ('/', 'usr', 'bin', 'python3') >>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files/PSF') >>> p.parts ('c:\\', 'Program Files', 'PSF')
(note how the drive and local root are regrouped in a single part)
Methods and properties¶
Pure paths provide the following methods and properties:
-
PurePath.
drive
¶ A string representing the drive letter or name, if any:
>>> PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files/').drive 'c:' >>> PureWindowsPath('/Program Files/').drive '' >>> PurePosixPath('/etc').drive ''
UNC shares are also considered drives:
>>> PureWindowsPath('//host/share/foo.txt').drive '\\\\host\\share'
-
PurePath.
root
¶ A string representing the (local or global) root, if any:
>>> PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files/').root '\\' >>> PureWindowsPath('c:Program Files/').root '' >>> PurePosixPath('/etc').root '/'
UNC shares always have a root:
>>> PureWindowsPath('//host/share').root '\\'
-
PurePath.
anchor
¶ The concatenation of the drive and root:
>>> PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files/').anchor 'c:\\' >>> PureWindowsPath('c:Program Files/').anchor 'c:' >>> PurePosixPath('/etc').anchor '/' >>> PureWindowsPath('//host/share').anchor '\\\\host\\share\\'
-
PurePath.
parents
¶ An immutable sequence providing access to the logical ancestors of the path:
>>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/foo/bar/setup.py') >>> p.parents[0] PureWindowsPath('c:/foo/bar') >>> p.parents[1] PureWindowsPath('c:/foo') >>> p.parents[2] PureWindowsPath('c:/')
-
PurePath.
parent
¶ The logical parent of the path:
>>> p = PurePosixPath('/a/b/c/d') >>> p.parent PurePosixPath('/a/b/c')
You cannot go past an anchor, or empty path:
>>> p = PurePosixPath('/') >>> p.parent PurePosixPath('/') >>> p = PurePosixPath('.') >>> p.parent PurePosixPath('.')
Note
This is a purely lexical operation, hence the following behaviour:
>>> p = PurePosixPath('foo/..') >>> p.parent PurePosixPath('foo')
If you want to walk an arbitrary filesystem path upwards, it is recommended to first call
Path.resolve()
so as to resolve symlinks and eliminate “..” components.
-
PurePath.
name
¶ A string representing the final path component, excluding the drive and root, if any:
>>> PurePosixPath('my/library/setup.py').name 'setup.py'
UNC drive names are not considered:
>>> PureWindowsPath('//some/share/setup.py').name 'setup.py' >>> PureWindowsPath('//some/share').name ''
-
PurePath.
suffix
¶ The file extension of the final component, if any:
>>> PurePosixPath('my/library/setup.py').suffix '.py' >>> PurePosixPath('my/library.tar.gz').suffix '.gz' >>> PurePosixPath('my/library').suffix ''
-
PurePath.
suffixes
¶ A list of the path’s file extensions:
>>> PurePosixPath('my/library.tar.gar').suffixes ['.tar', '.gar'] >>> PurePosixPath('my/library.tar.gz').suffixes ['.tar', '.gz'] >>> PurePosixPath('my/library').suffixes []
-
PurePath.
stem
¶ The final path component, without its suffix:
>>> PurePosixPath('my/library.tar.gz').stem 'library.tar' >>> PurePosixPath('my/library.tar').stem 'library' >>> PurePosixPath('my/library').stem 'library'
-
PurePath.
as_posix
()¶ Return a string representation of the path with forward slashes (
/
):>>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:\\windows') >>> str(p) 'c:\\windows' >>> p.as_posix() 'c:/windows'
-
PurePath.
as_uri
()¶ Represent the path as a
file
URI.ValueError
is raised if the path isn’t absolute.>>> p = PurePosixPath('/etc/passwd') >>> p.as_uri() 'file:///etc/passwd' >>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/Windows') >>> p.as_uri() 'file:///c:/Windows'
-
PurePath.
is_absolute
()¶ Return whether the path is absolute or not. A path is considered absolute if it has both a root and (if the flavour allows) a drive:
>>> PurePosixPath('/a/b').is_absolute() True >>> PurePosixPath('a/b').is_absolute() False >>> PureWindowsPath('c:/a/b').is_absolute() True >>> PureWindowsPath('/a/b').is_absolute() False >>> PureWindowsPath('c:').is_absolute() False >>> PureWindowsPath('//some/share').is_absolute() True
-
PurePath.
is_relative_to
(*other)¶ Return whether or not this path is relative to the other path.
>>> p = PurePath('/etc/passwd') >>> p.is_relative_to('/etc') True >>> p.is_relative_to('/usr') False
New in version 3.9.
-
PurePath.
is_reserved
()¶ With
PureWindowsPath
, returnTrue
if the path is considered reserved under Windows,False
otherwise. WithPurePosixPath
,False
is always returned.>>> PureWindowsPath('nul').is_reserved() True >>> PurePosixPath('nul').is_reserved() False
File system calls on reserved paths can fail mysteriously or have unintended effects.
-
PurePath.
joinpath
(*other)¶ Calling this method is equivalent to combining the path with each of the other arguments in turn:
>>> PurePosixPath('/etc').joinpath('passwd') PurePosixPath('/etc/passwd') >>> PurePosixPath('/etc').joinpath(PurePosixPath('passwd')) PurePosixPath('/etc/passwd') >>> PurePosixPath('/etc').joinpath('init.d', 'apache2') PurePosixPath('/etc/init.d/apache2') >>> PureWindowsPath('c:').joinpath('/Program Files') PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files')
-
PurePath.
match
(pattern)¶ Match this path against the provided glob-style pattern. Return
True
if matching is successful,False
otherwise.If pattern is relative, the path can be either relative or absolute, and matching is done from the right:
>>> PurePath('a/b.py').match('*.py') True >>> PurePath('/a/b/c.py').match('b/*.py') True >>> PurePath('/a/b/c.py').match('a/*.py') False
If pattern is absolute, the path must be absolute, and the whole path must match:
>>> PurePath('/a.py').match('/*.py') True >>> PurePath('a/b.py').match('/*.py') False
As with other methods, case-sensitivity follows platform defaults:
>>> PurePosixPath('b.py').match('*.PY') False >>> PureWindowsPath('b.py').match('*.PY') True
-
PurePath.
relative_to
(*other)¶ Compute a version of this path relative to the path represented by other. If it’s impossible, ValueError is raised:
>>> p = PurePosixPath('/etc/passwd') >>> p.relative_to('/') PurePosixPath('etc/passwd') >>> p.relative_to('/etc') PurePosixPath('passwd') >>> p.relative_to('/usr') Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> File "pathlib.py", line 694, in relative_to .format(str(self), str(formatted))) ValueError: '/etc/passwd' is not in the subpath of '/usr' OR one path is relative and the other absolute.
NOTE: This function is part of
PurePath
and works with strings. It does not check or access the underlying file structure.
-
PurePath.
with_name
(name)¶ Return a new path with the
name
changed. If the original path doesn’t have a name, ValueError is raised:>>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/Downloads/pathlib.tar.gz') >>> p.with_name('setup.py') PureWindowsPath('c:/Downloads/setup.py') >>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/') >>> p.with_name('setup.py') Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> File "/home/antoine/cpython/default/Lib/pathlib.py", line 751, in with_name raise ValueError("%r has an empty name" % (self,)) ValueError: PureWindowsPath('c:/') has an empty name
-
PurePath.
with_stem
(stem)¶ Return a new path with the
stem
changed. If the original path doesn’t have a name, ValueError is raised:>>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/Downloads/draft.txt') >>> p.with_stem('final') PureWindowsPath('c:/Downloads/final.txt') >>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/Downloads/pathlib.tar.gz') >>> p.with_stem('lib') PureWindowsPath('c:/Downloads/lib.gz') >>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/') >>> p.with_stem('') Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> File "/home/antoine/cpython/default/Lib/pathlib.py", line 861, in with_stem return self.with_name(stem + self.suffix) File "/home/antoine/cpython/default/Lib/pathlib.py", line 851, in with_name raise ValueError("%r has an empty name" % (self,)) ValueError: PureWindowsPath('c:/') has an empty name
New in version 3.9.
-
PurePath.
with_suffix
(suffix)¶ Return a new path with the
suffix
changed. If the original path doesn’t have a suffix, the new suffix is appended instead. If the suffix is an empty string, the original suffix is removed:>>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/Downloads/pathlib.tar.gz') >>> p.with_suffix('.bz2') PureWindowsPath('c:/Downloads/pathlib.tar.bz2') >>> p = PureWindowsPath('README') >>> p.with_suffix('.txt') PureWindowsPath('README.txt') >>> p = PureWindowsPath('README.txt') >>> p.with_suffix('') PureWindowsPath('README')
Concrete paths¶
Concrete paths are subclasses of the pure path classes. In addition to operations provided by the latter, they also provide methods to do system calls on path objects. There are three ways to instantiate concrete paths:
-
class
pathlib.
Path
(*pathsegments)¶ A subclass of
PurePath
, this class represents concrete paths of the system’s path flavour (instantiating it creates either aPosixPath
or aWindowsPath
):>>> Path('setup.py') PosixPath('setup.py')
pathsegments is specified similarly to
PurePath
.
-
class
pathlib.
PosixPath
(*pathsegments)¶ A subclass of
Path
andPurePosixPath
, this class represents concrete non-Windows filesystem paths:>>> PosixPath('/etc') PosixPath('/etc')
pathsegments is specified similarly to
PurePath
.
-
class
pathlib.
WindowsPath
(*pathsegments)¶ A subclass of
Path
andPureWindowsPath
, this class represents concrete Windows filesystem paths:>>> WindowsPath('c:/Program Files/') WindowsPath('c:/Program Files')
pathsegments is specified similarly to
PurePath
.
You can only instantiate the class flavour that corresponds to your system (allowing system calls on non-compatible path flavours could lead to bugs or failures in your application):
>>> import os
>>> os.name
'posix'
>>> Path('setup.py')
PosixPath('setup.py')
>>> PosixPath('setup.py')
PosixPath('setup.py')
>>> WindowsPath('setup.py')
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "pathlib.py", line 798, in __new__
% (cls.__name__,))
NotImplementedError: cannot instantiate 'WindowsPath' on your system
Methods¶
Concrete paths provide the following methods in addition to pure paths
methods. Many of these methods can raise an OSError
if a system
call fails (for example because the path doesn’t exist).
Changed in version 3.8: exists()
, is_dir()
, is_file()
,
is_mount()
, is_symlink()
,
is_block_device()
, is_char_device()
,
is_fifo()
, is_socket()
now return False
instead of raising an exception for paths that contain characters
unrepresentable at the OS level.
-
classmethod
Path.
cwd
()¶ Return a new path object representing the current directory (as returned by
os.getcwd()
):>>> Path.cwd() PosixPath('/home/antoine/pathlib')
-
classmethod
Path.
home
()¶ Return a new path object representing the user’s home directory (as returned by
os.path.expanduser()
with~
construct):>>> Path.home() PosixPath('/home/antoine')
Note that unlike
os.path.expanduser()
, on POSIX systems aKeyError
orRuntimeError
will be raised, and on Windows systems aRuntimeError
will be raised if home directory can’t be resolved.New in version 3.5.
-
Path.
stat
()¶ Return a
os.stat_result
object containing information about this path, likeos.stat()
. The result is looked up at each call to this method.>>> p = Path('setup.py') >>> p.stat().st_size 956 >>> p.stat().st_mtime 1327883547.852554
-
Path.
chmod
(mode)¶ Change the file mode and permissions, like
os.chmod()
:>>> p = Path('setup.py') >>> p.stat().st_mode 33277 >>> p.chmod(0o444) >>> p.stat().st_mode 33060
-
Path.
exists
()¶ Whether the path points to an existing file or directory:
>>> Path('.').exists() True >>> Path('setup.py').exists() True >>> Path('/etc').exists() True >>> Path('nonexistentfile').exists() False
Note
If the path points to a symlink,
exists()
returns whether the symlink points to an existing file or directory.
-
Path.
expanduser
()¶ Return a new path with expanded
~
and~user
constructs, as returned byos.path.expanduser()
:>>> p = PosixPath('~/films/Monty Python') >>> p.expanduser() PosixPath('/home/eric/films/Monty Python')
Note that unlike
os.path.expanduser()
, on POSIX systems aKeyError
orRuntimeError
will be raised, and on Windows systems aRuntimeError
will be raised if home directory can’t be resolved.New in version 3.5.
-
Path.
glob
(pattern)¶ Glob the given relative pattern in the directory represented by this path, yielding all matching files (of any kind):
>>> sorted(Path('.').glob('*.py')) [PosixPath('pathlib.py'), PosixPath('setup.py'), PosixPath('test_pathlib.py')] >>> sorted(Path('.').glob('*/*.py')) [PosixPath('docs/conf.py')]
The “
**
” pattern means “this directory and all subdirectories, recursively”. In other words, it enables recursive globbing:>>> sorted(Path('.').glob('**/*.py')) [PosixPath('build/lib/pathlib.py'), PosixPath('docs/conf.py'), PosixPath('pathlib.py'), PosixPath('setup.py'), PosixPath('test_pathlib.py')]
Note
Using the “
**
” pattern in large directory trees may consume an inordinate amount of time.Raises an auditing event
pathlib.Path.glob
with argumentsself
,pattern
.
-
Path.
group
()¶ Return the name of the group owning the file.
KeyError
is raised if the file’s gid isn’t found in the system database.
-
Path.
is_dir
()¶ Return
True
if the path points to a directory (or a symbolic link pointing to a directory),False
if it points to another kind of file.False
is also returned if the path doesn’t exist or is a broken symlink; other errors (such as permission errors) are propagated.
-
Path.
is_file
()¶ Return
True
if the path points to a regular file (or a symbolic link pointing to a regular file),False
if it points to another kind of file.False
is also returned if the path doesn’t exist or is a broken symlink; other errors (such as permission errors) are propagated.
-
Path.
is_mount
()¶ Return
True
if the path is a mount point: a point in a file system where a different file system has been mounted. On POSIX, the function checks whether path’s parent,path/..
, is on a different device than path, or whetherpath/..
and path point to the same i-node on the same device — this should detect mount points for all Unix and POSIX variants. Not implemented on Windows.New in version 3.7.
-
Path.
is_symlink
()¶ Return
True
if the path points to a symbolic link,False
otherwise.False
is also returned if the path doesn’t exist; other errors (such as permission errors) are propagated.
-
Path.
is_socket
()¶ Return
True
if the path points to a Unix socket (or a symbolic link pointing to a Unix socket),False
if it points to another kind of file.False
is also returned if the path doesn’t exist or is a broken symlink; other errors (such as permission errors) are propagated.
-
Path.
is_fifo
()¶ Return
True
if the path points to a FIFO (or a symbolic link pointing to a FIFO),False
if it points to another kind of file.False
is also returned if the path doesn’t exist or is a broken symlink; other errors (such as permission errors) are propagated.
-
Path.
is_block_device
()¶ Return
True
if the path points to a block device (or a symbolic link pointing to a block device),False
if it points to another kind of file.False
is also returned if the path doesn’t exist or is a broken symlink; other errors (such as permission errors) are propagated.
-
Path.
is_char_device
()¶ Return
True
if the path points to a character device (or a symbolic link pointing to a character device),False
if it points to another kind of file.False
is also returned if the path doesn’t exist or is a broken symlink; other errors (such as permission errors) are propagated.
-
Path.
iterdir
()¶ When the path points to a directory, yield path objects of the directory contents:
>>> p = Path('docs') >>> for child in p.iterdir(): child ... PosixPath('docs/conf.py') PosixPath('docs/_templates') PosixPath('docs/make.bat') PosixPath('docs/index.rst') PosixPath('docs/_build') PosixPath('docs/_static') PosixPath('docs/Makefile')
The children are yielded in arbitrary order, and the special entries
'.'
and'..'
are not included. If a file is removed from or added to the directory after creating the iterator, whether a path object for that file be included is unspecified.
-
Path.
lchmod
(mode)¶ Like
Path.chmod()
but, if the path points to a symbolic link, the symbolic link’s mode is changed rather than its target’s.
-
Path.
lstat
()¶ Like
Path.stat()
but, if the path points to a symbolic link, return the symbolic link’s information rather than its target’s.
-
Path.
mkdir
(mode=0o777, parents=False, exist_ok=False)¶ Create a new directory at this given path. If mode is given, it is combined with the process’
umask
value to determine the file mode and access flags. If the path already exists,FileExistsError
is raised.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 parents is false (the default), a missing parent raises
FileNotFoundError
.If exist_ok is false (the default),
FileExistsError
is raised if the target directory already exists.If exist_ok is true,
FileExistsError
exceptions will be ignored (same behavior as the POSIXmkdir -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.
-
Path.
open
(mode='r', buffering=-1, encoding=None, errors=None, newline=None)¶ Open the file pointed to by the path, like the built-in
open()
function does:>>> p = Path('setup.py') >>> with p.open() as f: ... f.readline() ... '#!/usr/bin/env python3\n'
-
Path.
owner
()¶ Return the name of the user owning the file.
KeyError
is raised if the file’s uid isn’t found in the system database.
-
Path.
read_bytes
()¶ Return the binary contents of the pointed-to file as a bytes object:
>>> p = Path('my_binary_file') >>> p.write_bytes(b'Binary file contents') 20 >>> p.read_bytes() b'Binary file contents'
New in version 3.5.
-
Path.
read_text
(encoding=None, errors=None)¶ Return the decoded contents of the pointed-to file as a string:
>>> p = Path('my_text_file') >>> p.write_text('Text file contents') 18 >>> p.read_text() 'Text file contents'
The file is opened and then closed. The optional parameters have the same meaning as in
open()
.New in version 3.5.
-
Path.
readlink
()¶ Return the path to which the symbolic link points (as returned by
os.readlink()
):>>> p = Path('mylink') >>> p.symlink_to('setup.py') >>> p.readlink() PosixPath('setup.py')
New in version 3.9.
-
Path.
rename
(target)¶ Rename this file or directory to the given target, and return a new Path instance pointing to target. On Unix, if target exists and is a file, it will be replaced silently if the user has permission. target can be either a string or another path object:
>>> p = Path('foo') >>> p.open('w').write('some text') 9 >>> target = Path('bar') >>> p.rename(target) PosixPath('bar') >>> target.open().read() 'some text'
The target path may be absolute or relative. Relative paths are interpreted relative to the current working directory, not the directory of the Path object.
Changed in version 3.8: Added return value, return the new Path instance.
-
Path.
replace
(target)¶ Rename this file or directory to the given target, and return a new Path instance pointing to target. If target points to an existing file or empty directory, it will be unconditionally replaced.
The target path may be absolute or relative. Relative paths are interpreted relative to the current working directory, not the directory of the Path object.
Changed in version 3.8: Added return value, return the new Path instance.
-
Path.
resolve
(strict=False)¶ Make the path absolute, resolving any symlinks. A new path object is returned:
>>> p = Path() >>> p PosixPath('.') >>> p.resolve() PosixPath('/home/antoine/pathlib')
“
..
” components are also eliminated (this is the only method to do so):>>> p = Path('docs/../setup.py') >>> p.resolve() PosixPath('/home/antoine/pathlib/setup.py')
If the path doesn’t exist and strict is
True
,FileNotFoundError
is raised. If strict isFalse
, the path is resolved as far as possible and any remainder is appended without checking whether it exists. If an infinite loop is encountered along the resolution path,RuntimeError
is raised.New in version 3.6: The strict argument (pre-3.6 behavior is strict).
-
Path.
rglob
(pattern)¶ This is like calling
Path.glob()
with “**/
” added in front of the given relative pattern:>>> sorted(Path().rglob("*.py")) [PosixPath('build/lib/pathlib.py'), PosixPath('docs/conf.py'), PosixPath('pathlib.py'), PosixPath('setup.py'), PosixPath('test_pathlib.py')]
Raises an auditing event
pathlib.Path.rglob
with argumentsself
,pattern
.
-
Path.
rmdir
()¶ Remove this directory. The directory must be empty.
-
Path.
samefile
(other_path)¶ Return whether this path points to the same file as other_path, which can be either a Path object, or a string. The semantics are similar to
os.path.samefile()
andos.path.samestat()
.An
OSError
can be raised if either file cannot be accessed for some reason.>>> p = Path('spam') >>> q = Path('eggs') >>> p.samefile(q) False >>> p.samefile('spam') True
New in version 3.5.
-
Path.
symlink_to
(target, target_is_directory=False)¶ Make this path a symbolic link to target. Under Windows, target_is_directory must be true (default
False
) if the link’s target is a directory. Under POSIX, target_is_directory’s value is ignored.>>> p = Path('mylink') >>> p.symlink_to('setup.py') >>> p.resolve() PosixPath('/home/antoine/pathlib/setup.py') >>> p.stat().st_size 956 >>> p.lstat().st_size 8
Note
The order of arguments (link, target) is the reverse of
os.symlink()
’s.
-
Path.
link_to
(target)¶ Make target a hard link to this path.
Warning
This function does not make this path a hard link to target, despite the implication of the function and argument names. The argument order (target, link) is the reverse of
Path.symlink_to()
, but matches that ofos.link()
.New in version 3.8.
-
Path.
touch
(mode=0o666, exist_ok=True)¶ Create a file at this given path. If mode is given, it is combined with the process’
umask
value to determine the file mode and access flags. If the file already exists, the function succeeds if exist_ok is true (and its modification time is updated to the current time), otherwiseFileExistsError
is raised.
-
Path.
unlink
(missing_ok=False)¶ Remove this file or symbolic link. If the path points to a directory, use
Path.rmdir()
instead.If missing_ok is false (the default),
FileNotFoundError
is raised if the path does not exist.If missing_ok is true,
FileNotFoundError
exceptions will be ignored (same behavior as the POSIXrm -f
command).Changed in version 3.8: The missing_ok parameter was added.
-
Path.
write_bytes
(data)¶ Open the file pointed to in bytes mode, write data to it, and close the file:
>>> p = Path('my_binary_file') >>> p.write_bytes(b'Binary file contents') 20 >>> p.read_bytes() b'Binary file contents'
An existing file of the same name is overwritten.
New in version 3.5.
-
Path.
write_text
(data, encoding=None, errors=None)¶ Open the file pointed to in text mode, write data to it, and close the file:
>>> p = Path('my_text_file') >>> p.write_text('Text file contents') 18 >>> p.read_text() 'Text file contents'
An existing file of the same name is overwritten. The optional parameters have the same meaning as in
open()
.New in version 3.5.
Correspondence to tools in the os
module¶
Below is a table mapping various os
functions to their corresponding
PurePath
/Path
equivalent.
Note
Although os.path.relpath()
and PurePath.relative_to()
have some
overlapping use-cases, their semantics differ enough to warrant not
considering them equivalent.
os and os.path |
pathlib |
---|---|