Equivalent To The Find Coreutil Command In Python 3 For Recursively Returning All Files And Folders In A Directory Structure?

What is best alternative to find in python (3) for recursively returning all files and folders in a directory structure? I want something similar to: find ~/x/y/ > ~/matches.txt

Solution 1:

You can use os.walk:

To get directory, file name list:

import os

matches = []
for dirpath, dirnames, filenames inos.walk(os.path.expanduser('~/x/y')):
    matches.extend(os.path.join(dirpath, x) for x in dirnames + filenames)

To write the file list to text file:

import os

with open(os.path.expanduser('~/matches.txt'), 'w') as f:
    for dirpath, dirnames, filenames inos.walk(os.path.expanduser('~/x/y')):
        for x in dirnames + filenames:
            f.write('{}\n'.format(os.path.join(dirpath, x)))

os.path.expanduser is used to replace ~ with home directory path.

---

Alternative using pathlib.Path.rglob which available since Python 3.4:

import os
import pathlib

matches = list(map(str, pathlib.Path(os.path.expanduser('~/x/y')).rglob('*')))

---

import os
import pathlib

with open(os.path.expanduser('~/matches.txt'), 'w') as f:
    forpathin pathlib.Path(os.path.expanduser('~/x/y')).rglob('*'):
        f.write('{}\n'.format(path))

Solution 2:

Kinda like os.dirwalk, but with new pathlib constructs:

import pathlib
def pathlibs_dirwalk(dir_path):
     dir_path =Path(dir_path)
     return { f.relative_to(dir_path) for f in dir_path.rglob('*') }

This one also chops off the root, so it's like like GNU find's version:

find /usr/local/gdb-8.2a -printf '%P\n'

lib/libopcodes.a lib/libinproctrace.so bin bin/gdb bin/gcore

Solution 3:

As much as I like globs, since your question specifically says python 3, I'm more than happy to recommend using os.scandir + yield from to simplify the approach.

import os

def find(path):
    yieldpathifos.path.isdir(path):
        for i inos.scandir(path):
            yield from find(i.path)

for i infind('.'):
    print(i)