Python – Recursive sub folder search and return files in a list python

listos.walkpythonrecursion

I am working on a script to recursively go through subfolders in a mainfolder and build a list off a certain file type. I am having an issue with the script. Its currently set as follows

for root, subFolder, files in os.walk(PATH):
    for item in files:
        if item.endswith(".txt") :
            fileNamePath = str(os.path.join(root,subFolder,item))

the problem is that the subFolder variable is pulling in a list of subfolders rather than the folder that the ITEM file is located. I was thinking of running a for loop for the subfolder before and join the first part of the path but I figured Id double check to see if anyone has any suggestions before that. Thanks for your help!

Best Answer

You should be using the dirpath which you call root. The dirnames are supplied so you can prune it if there are folders that you don't wish os.walk to recurse into.

import os
result = [os.path.join(dp, f) for dp, dn, filenames in os.walk(PATH) for f in filenames if os.path.splitext(f)[1] == '.txt']

Edit:

After the latest downvote, it occurred to me that glob is a better tool for selecting by extension.

import os
from glob import glob
result = [y for x in os.walk(PATH) for y in glob(os.path.join(x[0], '*.txt'))]

Also a generator version

from itertools import chain
result = (chain.from_iterable(glob(os.path.join(x[0], '*.txt')) for x in os.walk('.')))

Edit2 for Python 3.4+

from pathlib import Path
result = list(Path(".").rglob("*.[tT][xX][tT]"))
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