Python os.walk() Method

Description

Python method walk() generates the file names in a directory tree by walking the tree either top-down or bottom-up.

Syntax

Following is the syntax for walk() method −

os.walk(top[, topdown=True[, onerror=None[, followlinks=False]]])

Parameters

top − Each directory rooted at directory, yields 3-tuples, i.e., (dirpath, dirnames, filenames)
topdown − If optional argument topdown is True or not specified, directories are scanned from top-down. If topdown is set to False, directories are scanned from bottom-up.
onerror − This can show error to continue with the walk, or raise the exception to abort the walk.
followlinks − This visits directories pointed to by symlinks, if set to true.

Return Value

This method returns value.

Example

The following example shows the usage of walk() method.

# !/usr/bin/python

import os
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(".", topdown=False):
   for name in files:
      print(os.path.join(root, name))
   for name in dirs:
      print(os.path.join(root, name))

Let us compile and run the above program, this will scan all the directories and subdirectories bottom-to-up

./tmp/test.py
./.bash_logout
./amrood.tar.gz
./.emacs
./httpd.conf
./www.tar.gz
./mysql.tar.gz
./test.py
./.bashrc
./.bash_history
./.bash_profile
./tmp

If you will change the value of topdown to True, then it will give you the following result −

./.bash_logout
./amrood.tar.gz
./.emacs
./httpd.conf
./www.tar.gz
./mysql.tar.gz
./test.py
./.bashrc
./.bash_history
./.bash_profile
./tmp
./tmp/test.py

python_files_io.htm