Listing of all files in directory?

Can anybody help me create a function which will create a list of all files under a certain directory by using pathlib library?

Here, I have a:

I have

• c:\desktop\test\A\A.txt

• c:\desktop\test\B\B_1\B.txt

• c:\desktop\test\123.txt

I expected to have a single list which would have the paths above, but my code returns a nested list.

Here is my code:

from pathlib import Path

def searching_all_files(directory: Path):   
    file_list = [] # A list for storing files existing in directories
        
    for x in directory.iterdir():
        if x.is_file():
            
           file_list.append(x)
        else:
            
           file_list.append(searching_all_files(directory/x))

    return file_list


p = Path('C:\\Users\\akrio\\Desktop\\Test')

print(searching_all_files(p))

Hope anybody could correct me.

Use Path.glob() to list all files and directories. And then filter it in a List Comprehensions.

p = Path(r'C:\Users\akrio\Desktop\Test').glob('**/*')
files = [x for x in p if x.is_file()]

More from the pathlib module:

• pathlib, part of the standard library.
• Python 3's pathlib Module: Taming the File System

from pathlib import Path
from pprint import pprint

def searching_all_files(directory):
    dirpath = Path(directory)
    assert dirpath.is_dir()
    file_list = []
    for x in dirpath.iterdir():
        if x.is_file():
            file_list.append(x)
        elif x.is_dir():
            file_list.extend(searching_all_files(x))
    return file_list

pprint(searching_all_files('.'))

With pathlib, it is as simple as the below comand.

path = Path('C:\\Users\\akrio\\Desktop\\Test')    
list(path.iterdir())

If you can assume that only file objects have a . in the name (i.e., .txt, .png, etc.) you can do a glob or recursive glob search...

from pathlib import Path

# Search the directory
list(Path('testDir').glob('*.*'))

# Search directories and subdirectories, recursively
list(Path('testDir').rglob('*.*'))

But that's not always the case. Sometimes there are hidden directories like .ipynb_checkpoints and files that do not have extensions. In that case, use list comprehension or a filter to sort out the Path objects that are files.

# Search Single Directory
list(filter(lambda x: x.is_file(), Path('testDir').iterdir()))

# Search Directories Recursively
list(filter(lambda x: x.is_file(), Path('testDir').rglob('*')))

# Search Single Directory
[x for x in Path('testDir').iterdir() if x.is_file()]

# Search Directories Recursively
[x for x in Path('testDir').rglob('*') if x.is_file()]

If your files have the same suffix, like .txt, you can use rglob to list the main directory and all subdirectories, recursively.

paths = list(Path(INPUT_PATH).rglob('*.txt'))

If you need to apply any useful Path function to each path. For example, accessing the name property:

[k.name for k in Path(INPUT_PATH).rglob('*.txt')]

Where INPUT_PATH is the path to your main directory, and Path is imported from pathlib.

A similar, more functional-oriented solution to @prasastoadi's one can be achieved by using the built-in filter function of Python:

from pathlib import Path

my_path = Path(r'C:\Users\akrio\Desktop\Test')
list(filter(Path.is_file, my_path.glob('**/*')))

Using pathlib2 is much easier,

from pathlib2 import Path

path = Path("/test/test/")
for x in path.iterdir():
    print (x)

def searching_all_files(directory: Path):   
    file_list = [] # A list for storing files existing in directories
        
    for x in directory.iterdir():
        if x.is_file():
            file_list.append(x)#here should be appended
        else:
            file_list.extend(searching_all_files(directory/x))# need to be extended

    return file_list

import pathlib

def get_all_files(dir_path_to_search):
    filename_list = []

    file_iterator = dir_path_to_search.iterdir()

    for entry in file_iterator:
            if entry.is_file():
                #print(entry.name)
                filename_list.append(entry.name)

    return filename_list

The function can we tested as -

dir_path_to_search= pathlib.Path("C:\\Users\\akrio\\Desktop\\Test")
print(get_all_files(dir_path_to_search))

Define path to directory:

from pathlib import Path
data_path = Path.home() / 'Desktop/My-Folder/'

Get all paths (files and directories):

paths = sorted(data_path.iterdir())

Get file paths only:

files = sorted(f for f in Path(data_path).iterdir() if f.is_file())

Get paths with specific pattern (e.g. with .png extension):

png_files = sorted(data_path.glob('*.png'))

You can use os.listdir(). It will get you everything that's in a directory - files and directories.

If you want just files, you could either filter this down using os.path:

from os import listdir
from os.path import isfile, join
onlyfiles = [files for files in listdir(mypath) if isfile(join(mypath, files))]

or you could use os.walk() which will yield two lists for each directory it visits - splitting into files and directories for you. If you only want the top directory you can just break the first time it yields

from os import walk
files = []
for (dirpath, dirnames, filenames) in walk(mypath):
    files.extend(filenames)
    break