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Python: read folders that are not ZIP folders

Currently I read folders individually like so:
input_location = r'path\202206'
I would like to read in all the folders at once + not read in the zipped files.
Essentially the logic id like to perform is input_location = r'path\202206' + r'path\202207' + r'path\202207' + r'path\202208'
I cant just do input_location = r'path\ as it may read in those zip files I do not want.
Is there a way to read in the folders without reading in the zip files? Or explicitly list the folder names in one variable (input_location)?

IIUC: Collecting all directories from a directory can be done using a simple list comprehension as follows.
The glob library is nice, as it returns the full filepath, whereas a function such as os.listdir() only returns the filenames.
import os
from glob import glob
dirs = [f for f in glob('/path/to/files/*') if os.path.isdir(f)]
Output:
['/path/to/files/202207',
'/path/to/files/202206',
'/path/to/files/202208',
'/path/to/files/202209']
Then, your script can iterate over the list of directories as required.
For completeness, the directory content is a follows:
202206
202206.zip
202207
202207.zip
202208
202208.zip
202209
202209.zip

If you use pathlib from Pythons standard library you can get all entries in the folder and check if the entry is a folder.
from pathlib import Path
for entry in Path('/path/to/folder').glob('*'):
if entry.is_dir():
print(entry)

A os base approach. Notice that os.listdir returns the content of the directory in a basename form and not as a path.
import os
def my_dirs(wd):
return list(filter(os.path.isdir, (os.path.join(wd, f) for f in os.listdir('.'))))
working_dir = # add path
print(*my_dirs(working_dir), sep='\n')
Remarks: to make your program platform independent you always stuffs like os.path.join or os.sep for path manipulation

Retrieve latest file with pathlib

I primarily use pathlib over os for paths, however there is one thing I have failed to get working on pathlib.
If for example I require the latest created .csv within a directory I would use glob & os
import glob
import os
target_dir = glob.glob("/home/foo/bar/baz/*.csv")
latest_csv = max(target_dir, key=os.path.getctime)
Is there an alternative using pathlib only?
(I am aware you can yield matching files with Path.glob(*.csv))

You can achieve it in just pathlib by doing the following:
A Path object has a method called stat() where you can retrieve things like creation and modify date.
from pathlib import Path
files = Path("./").glob("*.py")
latest_file = max([f for f in files], key=lambda item: item.stat().st_ctime)
print(latest_file)

sort filenames by their time created on linux [duplicate]

What is the best way to get a list of all files in a directory, sorted by date [created | modified], using python, on a windows machine?

I've done this in the past for a Python script to determine the last updated files in a directory:
import glob
import os
search_dir = "/mydir/"
# remove anything from the list that is not a file (directories, symlinks)
# thanks to J.F. Sebastion for pointing out that the requirement was a list
# of files (presumably not including directories)
files = list(filter(os.path.isfile, glob.glob(search_dir + "*")))
files.sort(key=lambda x: os.path.getmtime(x))
That should do what you're looking for based on file mtime.
EDIT: Note that you can also use os.listdir() in place of glob.glob() if desired - the reason I used glob in my original code was that I was wanting to use glob to only search for files with a particular set of file extensions, which glob() was better suited to. To use listdir here's what it would look like:
import os
search_dir = "/mydir/"
os.chdir(search_dir)
files = filter(os.path.isfile, os.listdir(search_dir))
files = [os.path.join(search_dir, f) for f in files] # add path to each file
files.sort(key=lambda x: os.path.getmtime(x))

Update: to sort dirpath's entries by modification date in Python 3:
import os
from pathlib import Path
paths = sorted(Path(dirpath).iterdir(), key=os.path.getmtime)
(put #Pygirl's answer here for greater visibility)
If you already have a list of filenames files, then to sort it inplace by creation time on Windows (make sure that list contains absolute path):
files.sort(key=os.path.getctime)
The list of files you could get, for example, using glob as shown in #Jay's answer.
old answer
Here's a more verbose version of #Greg Hewgill's answer. It is the most conforming to the question requirements. It makes a distinction between creation and modification dates (at least on Windows).
#!/usr/bin/env python
from stat import S_ISREG, ST_CTIME, ST_MODE
import os, sys, time
# path to the directory (relative or absolute)
dirpath = sys.argv[1] if len(sys.argv) == 2 else r'.'
# get all entries in the directory w/ stats
entries = (os.path.join(dirpath, fn) for fn in os.listdir(dirpath))
entries = ((os.stat(path), path) for path in entries)
# leave only regular files, insert creation date
entries = ((stat[ST_CTIME], path)
for stat, path in entries if S_ISREG(stat[ST_MODE]))
#NOTE: on Windows `ST_CTIME` is a creation date
# but on Unix it could be something else
#NOTE: use `ST_MTIME` to sort by a modification date
for cdate, path in sorted(entries):
print time.ctime(cdate), os.path.basename(path)
Example:
$ python stat_creation_date.py
Thu Feb 11 13:31:07 2009 stat_creation_date.py

There is an os.path.getmtime function that gives the number of seconds since the epoch
and should be faster than os.stat.
import os
os.chdir(directory)
sorted(filter(os.path.isfile, os.listdir('.')), key=os.path.getmtime)

Here's my version:
def getfiles(dirpath):
a = [s for s in os.listdir(dirpath)
if os.path.isfile(os.path.join(dirpath, s))]
a.sort(key=lambda s: os.path.getmtime(os.path.join(dirpath, s)))
return a
First, we build a list of the file names. isfile() is used to skip directories; it can be omitted if directories should be included. Then, we sort the list in-place, using the modify date as the key.

Here's a one-liner:
import os
import time
from pprint import pprint
pprint([(x[0], time.ctime(x[1].st_ctime)) for x in sorted([(fn, os.stat(fn)) for fn in os.listdir(".")], key = lambda x: x[1].st_ctime)])
This calls os.listdir() to get a list of the filenames, then calls os.stat() for each one to get the creation time, then sorts against the creation time.
Note that this method only calls os.stat() once for each file, which will be more efficient than calling it for each comparison in a sort.

In python 3.5+
from pathlib import Path
sorted(Path('.').iterdir(), key=lambda f: f.stat().st_mtime)

Without changing directory:
import os
path = '/path/to/files/'
name_list = os.listdir(path)
full_list = [os.path.join(path,i) for i in name_list]
time_sorted_list = sorted(full_list, key=os.path.getmtime)
print time_sorted_list
# if you want just the filenames sorted, simply remove the dir from each
sorted_filename_list = [ os.path.basename(i) for i in time_sorted_list]
print sorted_filename_list

from pathlib import Path
import os
sorted(Path('./').iterdir(), key=lambda t: t.stat().st_mtime)
or
sorted(Path('./').iterdir(), key=os.path.getmtime)
or
sorted(os.scandir('./'), key=lambda t: t.stat().st_mtime)
where m time is modified time.

Here's my answer using glob without filter if you want to read files with a certain extension in date order (Python 3).
dataset_path='/mydir/'
files = glob.glob(dataset_path+"/morepath/*.extension")
files.sort(key=os.path.getmtime)

# *** the shortest and best way ***
# getmtime --> sort by modified time
# getctime --> sort by created time
import glob,os
lst_files = glob.glob("*.txt")
lst_files.sort(key=os.path.getmtime)
print("\n".join(lst_files))

sorted(filter(os.path.isfile, os.listdir('.')),
key=lambda p: os.stat(p).st_mtime)
You could use os.walk('.').next()[-1] instead of filtering with os.path.isfile, but that leaves dead symlinks in the list, and os.stat will fail on them.

For completeness with os.scandir (2x faster over pathlib):
import os
sorted(os.scandir('/tmp/test'), key=lambda d: d.stat().st_mtime)

this is a basic step for learn:
import os, stat, sys
import time
dirpath = sys.argv[1] if len(sys.argv) == 2 else r'.'
listdir = os.listdir(dirpath)
for i in listdir:
os.chdir(dirpath)
data_001 = os.path.realpath(i)
listdir_stat1 = os.stat(data_001)
listdir_stat2 = ((os.stat(data_001), data_001))
print time.ctime(listdir_stat1.st_ctime), data_001

Alex Coventry's answer will produce an exception if the file is a symlink to an unexistent file, the following code corrects that answer:
import time
import datetime
sorted(filter(os.path.isfile, os.listdir('.')),
key=lambda p: os.path.exists(p) and os.stat(p).st_mtime or time.mktime(datetime.now().timetuple())
When the file doesn't exist, now() is used, and the symlink will go at the very end of the list.

This was my version:
import os
folder_path = r'D:\Movies\extra\new\dramas' # your path
os.chdir(folder_path) # make the path active
x = sorted(os.listdir(), key=os.path.getctime) # sorted using creation time
folder = 0
for folder in range(len(x)):
print(x[folder]) # print all the foldername inside the folder_path
folder = +1

Here is a simple couple lines that looks for extention as well as provides a sort option
def get_sorted_files(src_dir, regex_ext='*', sort_reverse=False):
files_to_evaluate = [os.path.join(src_dir, f) for f in os.listdir(src_dir) if re.search(r'.*\.({})$'.format(regex_ext), f)]
files_to_evaluate.sort(key=os.path.getmtime, reverse=sort_reverse)
return files_to_evaluate

Add the file directory/folder in path, if you want to have specific file type add the file extension, and then get file name in chronological order.
This works for me.
import glob, os
from pathlib import Path
path = os.path.expanduser(file_location+"/"+date_file)
os.chdir(path)
saved_file=glob.glob('*.xlsx')
saved_file.sort(key=os.path.getmtime)
print(saved_file)

Turns out os.listdir sorts by last modified but in reverse so you can do:
import os
last_modified=os.listdir()[::-1]

Maybe you should use shell commands. In Unix/Linux, find piped with sort will probably be able to do what you want.

Get the list of all the files with ".txt" after changing the current working directory

I changed the current working directory and then I want to list all the files in that directory with extension .txt. How can I achieve this?
# !/usr/bin/python
import os
path = "/home/pawn/Desktop/projects_files"
os.chdir(path)
## checking working directory
print ("working directory "+ os.getcwd()+'\n')
Now how to list all the files in the current directory (projects_files) with extension .txt?

Use glob, which is a wildcard search for files, and you don't need to change the directory either:
import glob
for f in glob.iglob('/home/pawn/Desktop/project_files/*.txt'):
print(f)

You can use glob. With glob you can use wildcards as you would do in your system command line. For example:
import glob
print( glob.glob('*.txt') )

You would need to use glob in python.
It will help you to fetch the files of a particular format..
Usage
>>> import glob
>>> glob.glob('*.gif')
Check the documentation for more details

if you don't want to import glob as suggested in the other good answers here, you can also do it with the same os moudle:
path = "/home/pawn/Desktop/projects_files"
[f for f in os.listdir(path) if f.endswith('.txt')]

How can I list the contents of a directory in Python?

Can’t be hard, but I’m having a mental block.

import os
os.listdir("path") # returns list

One way:
import os
os.listdir("/home/username/www/")
Another way:
glob.glob("/home/username/www/*")
Examples found here.
The glob.glob method above will not list hidden files.
Since I originally answered this question years ago, pathlib has been added to Python. My preferred way to list a directory now usually involves the iterdir method on Path objects:
from pathlib import Path
print(*Path("/home/username/www/").iterdir(), sep="\n")

os.walk can be used if you need recursion:
import os
start_path = '.' # current directory
for path,dirs,files in os.walk(start_path):
for filename in files:
print os.path.join(path,filename)

glob.glob or os.listdir will do it.

The os module handles all that stuff.
os.listdir(path)
Return a list containing the names of the entries in the directory given by path.
The list is in arbitrary order. It does not include the special entries '.' and
'..' even if they are present in the directory.
Availability: Unix, Windows.

In Python 3.4+, you can use the new pathlib package:
from pathlib import Path
for path in Path('.').iterdir():
print(path)
Path.iterdir() returns an iterator, which can be easily turned into a list:
contents = list(Path('.').iterdir())

Since Python 3.5, you can use os.scandir.
The difference is that it returns file entries not names. On some OSes like windows, it means that you don't have to os.path.isdir/file to know if it's a file or not, and that saves CPU time because stat is already done when scanning dir in Windows:
example to list a directory and print files bigger than max_value bytes:
for dentry in os.scandir("/path/to/dir"):
if dentry.stat().st_size > max_value:
print("{} is biiiig".format(dentry.name))
(read an extensive performance-based answer of mine here)

Below code will list directories and the files within the dir. The other one is os.walk
def print_directory_contents(sPath):
import os
for sChild in os.listdir(sPath):
sChildPath = os.path.join(sPath,sChild)
if os.path.isdir(sChildPath):
print_directory_contents(sChildPath)
else:
print(sChildPath)