• Using Path Methods
• Passing in a String
• Joining Paths

pathlib represents the file system as objects

• .cwd() - returns the current working directory
  on Windows returns a WidowsPath object
  on 'nix or macOS returns a PosixPath object
• .home() - returns user's home directory

>>> from pathlib import Path
>>> Path(r"E:\python\pytopics\pytopics61.html") # raw string as arg
WindowsPath('E:/python/pytopics/pytopics61.html')

from pathlib import Path

for file_path in Path.cwd().glob("*.txt"):
    new_path = Path("archive") / file_path.name
    file_path.rename(new_path)

>>> from pathlib import Path
>>> Path.home().joinpath("python", "scripts", "test.py")
PosixPath('C:/Users/gahjelle/python/scripts/test.py')

• Picking Out Components of a Path
• Reading and Writing Files
• Renaming Files
• Copying Files
• Moving and Deleting Files
• Creating Empty Files

• .name - the filename without any directory
• .stem - the filename without the extension
• .suffix - the file extension
• .anchor - the part of the path before the directories
• .parent - the directory containing the file or the parent directory if the path is a directory

>>> from pathlib import Path
>>> path = Path(r"C:\Users\gahjelle\realpython\test.md")
>>> path
WindowsPath('C:/Users/gahjelle/realpython/test.md')

>>> path.name
'test.md'

>>> path.stem
'test'

>>> path.suffix
'.md'

>>> path.anchor
'C:\\'

>>> path.parent
WindowsPath('C:/Users/gahjelle/realpython")

>>> path.parent.parent
WindowsPath('C:/Users/gahjelle')

some Path functions

from pathlib import Path

path = Path.cwd() / "shopping_list.md"
with path.open(mode="r", encoding="utf-8") as md_file:
    content = md_file.read()
    groceries = [line for line in content.splitlines() if line.startswith("*")]
print("\n".join(groceries))

from pathlib import Path

path = Path.cwd() / "shopping_list.md"
content = path.read_text(encoding="utf-8")
groceries = [line for line in content.splitlines() if line.startswith("*")]
print("\n".join(groceries))

from pathlib import Path

content = Path("shopping_list.md").read_text(encoding="utf-8")
groceries = [line for line in content.splitlines() if line.startswith("*")]
print("\n".join(groceries))

>>> from pathlib import Path
>>> txt_path = Path("C:/Users/gahjelle/realpython/hello.txt")
>>> txt_path
WindowsPath("C:/Users/gahjelle/realpython/hello.txt")

>>> md_path = txt_path.with_name("goodbye.md")
WindowsPath('C:/Users/gahjelle/realpython/goodbye.md')

>>> txt_path.replace(md_path)

>>> from pathlib import Path
>>> source = Path("shopping_list.md")
>>> destination = source.with_stem("shopping_list_02")
>>> destination.write_bytes(source.read_bytes())

from pathlib import Path

source = Path("hello.py")
destination = Path("goodbye.py")

if not destination.exists():
    source.replace(destination)

from pathlib import Path

source = Path("hello.py")
destination = Path("goodbye.py")

try:
    with destination.open(mode="xb") as file:
        file.write(source.read_bytes())
except FileExistsError:
    print(f"File {destination} exists already.")
else:
    source.unlink()

>>> from pathlib import Path
>>> filename = Path("hello.txt")
>>> filename.exists()
False

>>> filename.touch()
>>> filename.exists()
True

>>> filename.touch()

>>> filename.touch(exist_ok=False)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  ...
FileExistsError: [Errno 17] File exists: 'hello.txt'

• Counting Files
• Displaying a Directory Tree
• Finding the Most Recently Modified File
• Creating a Unique Filename

>>> from pathlib import Path
>>> from collections import Counter
>>> Counter(path.suffix for path in Path.cwd().iterdir())
Counter({'.md': 2, '.txt': 4, '.pdf': 2, '.py': 1})

>>> Counter(path.suffix for path in Path.cwd().glob("*.p*"))
Counter({'.pdf': 2, '.py': 1})

def tree(directory):
    print(f"+ {directory}")
    for path in sorted(directory.rglob("*")):
        depth = len(path.relative_to(directory).parts)
        spacer = "    " * depth
        print(f"{spacer}+ {path.name}")

>>> from pathlib import Path
>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> directory = Path.cwd()
>>> time, file_path = max((f.stat().st_mtime, f) for f in directory.iterdir())
>>> print(datetime.fromtimestamp(time), file_path)
2023-03-28 19:23:56.977817 /home/gahjelle/realpython/test001.txt

def unique_path(directory, name_pattern):
    counter = 0
    while True:
        counter += 1
        path = directory / name_pattern.format(counter)
        if not path.exists():
            return path

>>> from pathlib import Path
>>> from unique_path import unique_path
>>> template = "test{:03d}.txt"
>>> unique_path(Path.cwd(), template)
PosixPath("/home/gahjelle/realpython/test003.txt")