Copying files in python using shutil - python

I have the following directory structure:
-mailDir
-folderA
-sub1
-sub2
-inbox
-1.txt
-2.txt
-89.txt
-subInbox
-subInbox2
-folderB
-sub1
-sub2
-inbox
-1.txt
-2.txt
-200.txt
-577.txt
The aim is to copy all the txt files under inbox folder into another folder.
For this I tried the below code
import os
from os import path
import shutil
rootDir = "mailDir"
destDir = "destFolder"
eachInboxFolderPath = []
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(rootDir):
for dirName in dirs:
if(dirName=="inbox"):
eachInboxFolderPath.append(root+"\\"+dirName)
for ii in eachInboxFolderPath:
for i in os.listdir(ii):
shutil.copy(path.join(ii,i),destDir)
If the inbox directory only has .txt files then the above code works fine. Since the inbox folder under folderA directory has other sub directory along with .txt files, the code returns permission denied error. What I understood is shutil.copy won't allow to copy the folders.
The aim is to copy only the txt files in every inbox folder to some other location. If the file names are same in different inbox folder I have to keep both file names. How we can improve the code in this case ? Please note other than .txt all others are folders only.

One simple solution is to filter for any i that does not have the .txt extension by using the string endswith() method.
import os
from os import path
import shutil
rootDir = "mailDir"
destDir = "destFolder"
eachInboxFolderPath = []
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(rootDir):
for dirName in dirs:
if(dirName=="inbox"):
eachInboxFolderPath.append(root+"\\"+dirName)
for ii in eachInboxFolderPath:
for i in os.listdir(ii):
if i.endswith('.txt'):
shutil.copy(path.join(ii,i),destDir)
This should ignore any folders and non-txt files that are found with os.listdir(ii). I believe that is what you are looking for.

Just remembered that I once wrote several files to solve this exact problem before. You can find the source code here on my Github.
In short, there are two functions of interest here:
list_files(loc, return_dirs=False, return_files=True, recursive=False, valid_exts=None)
copy_files(loc, dest, rename=False)
For your case, you could copy and paste these functions into your project and modify copy_files like this:
def copy_files(loc, dest, rename=False):
# get files with full path
files = list_files(loc, return_dirs=False, return_files=True, recursive=True, valid_exts=('.txt',))
# copy files in list to dest
for i, this_file in enumerate(files):
# change name if renaming
if rename:
# replace slashes with hyphens to preserve unique name
out_file = sub(r'^./', '', this_file)
out_file = sub(r'\\|/', '-', out_file)
out_file = join(dest, out_file)
copy(this_file, out_file)
files[i] = out_file
else:
copy(this_file, dest)
return files
Then just call it like so:
copy_files('mailDir', 'destFolder', rename=True)
The renaming scheme might not be exactly what you want, but it will at least not override your files. I believe this should solve all your problems.

Here you go:
import os
from os import path
import shutil
destDir = '<absolute-path>'
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(os.getcwd()):
# Filter out only '.txt' files.
files = [f for f in files if f.endswith('.txt')]
# Filter out only 'inbox' directory.
dirs[:] = [d for d in dirs if d == 'inbox']
for f in files:
p = path.join(root, f)
# print p
shutil.copy(p, destDir)
Quick and simple.
sorry, I forgot the part where, you also need unique file names as well. The above solution only works for distinct file names in a single inbox folder.
For copying files from multiple inboxes and having a unique name in the destination folder, you can try this:
import os
from os import path
import shutil
sourceDir = os.getcwd()
fixedLength = len(sourceDir)
destDir = '<absolute-path>'
filteredFiles = []
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(sourceDir):
# Filter out only '.txt' files in all the inbox directories.
if root.endswith('inbox'):
# here I am joining the file name to the full path while filtering txt files
files = [path.join(root, f) for f in files if f.endswith('.txt')]
# add the filtered files to the main list
filteredFiles.extend(files)
# making a tuple of file path and file name
filteredFiles = [(f, f[fixedLength+1:].replace('/', '-')) for f in filteredFiles]
for (f, n) in filteredFiles:
print 'copying file...', f
# copying from the path to the dest directory with specific name
shutil.copy(f, path.join(destDir, n))
print 'copied', str(len(filteredFiles)), 'files to', destDir
If you need to copy all files instead of just txt files, then just change the condition f.endswith('.txt') to os.path.isfile(f) while filtering out the files.

Related

open a folder to then use the files in python correctly

Usually I navigate to the folder I am extracting data from and copy the file name directly:
df2=pd.read_csv('10_90_bnOH-MEA.csv',usecols=[1])
If I have multiple files and want to do the same for all the files, how do I specify the folder to open and get all the files inside?
I want to run the above code without specifying the file's full path
(C:\Users\X\Desktop\Y\Z\10_90_bnOH-MEA.csv)
You want listdir from the os module.
import os
path = "C:\\Users\\X\\Desktop\\Y\\Z\\"
files = os.listdir(path)
print(files)
dataframe_list = []
for filename in files:
dataframe_list.append(pd.read_csv(os.path.join(path,filename)))
You should open the desired directory and loop through all the files then do something to them.
# import required module
import os
# assign directory
directory = 'files'
# iterate over files in
def goThroughDirectory(directory):
for filename in os.listdir(directory):
f = os.path.join(directory, filename)
# checking if it is a file
if os.path.isfile(f):
# do something
If you also want to loop through all the files in a directory you should add a check for if os.path.isdir(f) like this
...
def goThroughDirectory(directory):
for filename in os.listdir(directory):
f = os.path.join(directory, filename)
# checking if it is a file
if os.path.isfile(f):
# do something
elif os.path.isdir(f):
# its not a file but a directory then loop through that directory aswell
goThroughDirectory(directory + "\" + f)
for more information you should check geeksforgeeks

Copy files with specific text at the end of their (file) names from one folder to other folder

I have 23000 files in one folder and want to copy files with their names ending with some specific text to other folder using python. I used the following code, though it runs successfully but it doesn't copy the file in the destination folder.
import os
import shutil
path = "D:/Snow_new/test"
outpath = "D:/Snow_new/testout"
for f in os.listdir(path):
if f.endswith("clip_2"):
shutil.copyfile(os.path.join(path, f), outpath)
you are trying to copy files to a single filename again and again, so to fix it you will have to add the filename with outpath for every file
import os
import shutil
path = "D:/Snow_new/test"
outpath = "D:/Snow_new/testout"
if not os.path.isdir(outpath):
os.mkdir(outpath)
else:
shutil.rmtree(outpath)
os.mkdir(outpath)
for f in os.listdir(path):
f2, ext = os.path.splitext(f)
if f2.endswith("clip_2"):
shutil.copyfile(os.path.join(path, f), os.path.join(outpath, f))
before running the above code make sure that you remove D:/Snow_new/testout completly

Folder containing subfolders, that contain multiple files (.xlsm, .pdf, .txt). How to rename .pdf files to subfolders' name?

This could be done with python, but I think I am missing a way to loop for all directories. Here is the code I am using:
import os
def renameInDir(directory):
for filename in os.listdir(directory):
if filename.endswith(".pdf"):
path = os.path.realpath(filename)
parents = path.split('/') //make an array of all the dirs in the path. 0 will be the original basefilename
newFilename=os.path.dirname(filename)+directory +parents[-1:][0] //reorganize data into format you want
os.rename(filename, newFilename)//rename the file
You should go with os.walk(). It will map the directory tree by the given directory param, and generate the file names.
Using os.walk() you'll accomplish the desired result is this way:
import os
from os.path import join
for dirpath, dirnames, filenames in os.walk('/path/to/directory'):
for name in filenames:
new_name = name[:-3] + 'new_file_extension'
os.rename(join(dirpath, name), join(dirpath, new_name))

match filenames to foldernames then move files

I have files named "a1.txt", "a2.txt", "a3.txt", "a4.txt", "a5.txt" and so on. Then I have folders named "a1_1998", "a2_1999", "a3_2000", "a4_2001", "a5_2002" and so on.
I would like to make the conection between file "a1.txt" & folder "a1_1998" for example. (I'm guessing I'll need a regular expresion to do this). then use shutil to move file "a1.txt" into folder "a1_1998", file "a2.txt" into folder "a2_1999" etc....
I've started like this but I'm stuck because of my lack of understanding of regular expresions.
import re
##list files and folders
r = re.compile('^a(?P')
m = r.match('a')
m.group('id')
##
##Move files to folders
I modified the answer below slightly to use shutil to move the files, did the trick!!
import shutil
import os
import glob
files = glob.glob(r'C:\Wam\*.txt')
for file in files:
# this will remove the .txt extension and keep the "aN"
first_part = file[7:-4]
# find the matching directory
dir = glob.glob(r'C:\Wam\%s_*/' % first_part)[0]
shutil.move(file, dir)
You do not need regular expressions for this.
How about something like this:
import glob
files = glob.glob('*.txt')
for file in files:
# this will remove the .txt extension and keep the "aN"
first_part = file[:-4]
# find the matching directory
dir = glob.glob('%s_*/' % first_part)[0]
os.rename(file, os.path.join(dir, file))
A slight alternative, taking into account Inbar Rose's suggestion.
import os
import glob
files = glob.glob('*.txt')
dirs = glob.glob('*_*')
for file in files:
filename = os.path.splitext(file)[0]
matchdir = next(x for x in dirs if filename == x.rsplit('_')[0])
os.rename(file, os.path.join(matchdir, file))

All Files in Dir & Sub-Dir

I would like to find all the files in a directory and all sub-directories.
code used:
import os
import sys
path = "C:\\"
dirs = os.listdir(path)
filename = "C.txt"
FILE = open(filename, "w")
FILE.write(str(dirs))
FILE.close()
print dirs
The problem is - this code only lists files in directories, not sub-directories. What do I need to change in order to also list files in subdirectories?
To traverse a directory tree you want to use os.walk() for this.
Here's an example to get you started:
import os
searchdir = r'C:\root_dir' # traversal starts in this directory (the root)
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(searchdir):
for name in files:
(base, ext) = os.path.splitext(name) # split base and extension
print base, ext
which would give you access to the file names and the components.
You'll find the functions in the os and os.path module to be of great use for this sort of work.
This function will help you: os.path.walk() http://docs.python.org/library/os.path.html#os.path.walk

Categories