pathlib — Object-oriented filesystem paths

New in version 3.4.

Source code: Lib/pathlib.py

This module offers classes representing filesystem paths with semantics appropriate for different operating systems. Path classes are divided between pure paths, which provide purely computational operations without I/O, and concrete paths, which inherit from pure paths but also provide I/O operations.

../_images/pathlib-inheritance.png

If you’ve never used this module before or just aren’t sure which class is right for your task, Path is most likely what you need. It instantiates a concrete path for the platform the code is running on.

Pure paths are useful in some special cases; for example:

  1. If you want to manipulate Windows paths on a Unix machine (or vice versa). You cannot instantiate a WindowsPath when running on Unix, but you can instantiate PureWindowsPath.

  2. You want to make sure that your code only manipulates paths without actually accessing the OS. In this case, instantiating one of the pure classes may be useful since those simply don’t have any OS-accessing operations.

See also

PEP 428: The pathlib module – object-oriented filesystem paths.

See also

For low-level path manipulation on strings, you can also use the os.path module.

Basic use

Importing the main class:

>>> from pathlib import Path

Listing subdirectories:

>>> p = Path('.')
>>> [x for x in p.iterdir() if x.is_dir()]
[PosixPath('.hg'), PosixPath('docs'), PosixPath('dist'),
 PosixPath('__pycache__'), PosixPath('build')]

Listing Python source files in this directory tree:

>>> list(p.glob('**/*.py'))
[PosixPath('test_pathlib.py'), PosixPath('setup.py'),
 PosixPath('pathlib.py'), PosixPath('docs/conf.py'),
 PosixPath('build/lib/pathlib.py')]

Navigating inside a directory tree:

>>> p = Path('/etc')
>>> q = p / 'init.d' / 'reboot'
>>> q
PosixPath('/etc/init.d/reboot')
>>> q.resolve()
PosixPath('/etc/rc.d/init.d/halt')

Querying path properties:

>>> q.exists()
True
>>> q.is_dir()
False

Opening a file:

>>> with q.open() as f: f.readline()
...
'#!/bin/bash\n'

Pure paths

Pure path objects provide path-handling operations which don’t actually access a filesystem. There are three ways to access these classes, which we also call flavours:

class pathlib.PurePath(*pathsegments)

A generic class that represents the system’s path flavour (instantiating it creates either a PurePosixPath or a PureWindowsPath):

>>> PurePath('setup.py')      # Running on a Unix machine
PurePosixPath('setup.py')

Each element of pathsegments can be either a string representing a path segment, an object implementing the os.PathLike interface which returns a string, or another path object:

>>> PurePath('foo', 'some/path', 'bar')
PurePosixPath('foo/some/path/bar')
>>> PurePath(Path('foo'), Path('bar'))
PurePosixPath('foo/bar')

When pathsegments is empty, the current directory is assumed:

>>> PurePath()
PurePosixPath('.')

If a segment is an absolute path, all previous segments are ignored (like os.path.join()):

>>> PurePath('/etc', '/usr', 'lib64')
PurePosixPath('/usr/lib64')
>>> PureWindowsPath('c:/Windows', 'd:bar')
PureWindowsPath('d:bar')

On Windows, the drive is not reset when a rooted relative path segment (e.g., r'\foo') is encountered:

>>> PureWindowsPath('c:/Windows', '/Program Files')
PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files')

Spurious slashes and single dots are collapsed, but double dots ('..') and leading double slashes ('//') are not, since this would change the meaning of a path for various reasons (e.g. symbolic links, UNC paths):

>>> PurePath('foo//bar')
PurePosixPath('foo/bar')
>>> PurePath('//foo/bar')
PurePosixPath('//foo/bar')
>>> PurePath('foo/./bar')
PurePosixPath('foo/bar')
>>> PurePath('foo/../bar')
PurePosixPath('foo/../bar')

(a naïve approach would make PurePosixPath('foo/../bar') equivalent to PurePosixPath('bar'), which is wrong if foo is a symbolic link to another directory)

Pure path objects implement the os.PathLike interface, allowing them to be used anywhere the interface is accepted.

Changed in version 3.6: Added support for the os.PathLike interface.

class pathlib.PurePosixPath(*pathsegments)

A subclass of PurePath, this path flavour represents non-Windows filesystem paths:

>>> PurePosixPath('/etc')
PurePosixPath('/etc')

pathsegments is specified similarly to PurePath.

class pathlib.PureWindowsPath(*pathsegments)

A subclass of PurePath, this path flavour represents Windows filesystem paths, including UNC paths:

>>> PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files/')
PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files')
>>> PureWindowsPath('//server/share/file')
PureWindowsPath('//server/share/file')

pathsegments is specified similarly to PurePath.

Regardless of the system you’re running on, you can instantiate all of these classes, since they don’t provide any operation that does system calls.

General properties

Paths are immutable and hashable. Paths of a same flavour are comparable and orderable. These properties respect the flavour’s case-folding semantics:

>>> PurePosixPath('foo') == PurePosixPath('FOO')
False
>>> PureWindowsPath('foo') == PureWindowsPath('FOO')
True
>>> PureWindowsPath('FOO') in { PureWindowsPath('foo') }
True
>>> PureWindowsPath('C:') < PureWindowsPath('d:')
True

Paths of a different flavour compare unequal and cannot be ordered:

>>> PureWindowsPath('foo') == PurePosixPath('foo')
False
>>> PureWindowsPath('foo') < PurePosixPath('foo')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: '<' not supported between instances of 'PureWindowsPath' and 'PurePosixPath'

Operators

The slash operator helps create child paths, like os.path.join(). If the argument is an absolute path, the previous path is ignored. On Windows, the drive is not reset when the argument is a rooted relative path (e.g., r'\foo'):

>>> p = PurePath('/etc')
>>> p
PurePosixPath('/etc')
>>> p / 'init.d' / 'apache2'
PurePosixPath('/etc/init.d/apache2')
>>> q = PurePath('bin')
>>> '/usr' / q
PurePosixPath('/usr/bin')
>>> p / '/an_absolute_path'
PurePosixPath('/an_absolute_path')
>>> PureWindowsPath('c:/Windows', '/Program Files')
PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files')

A path object can be used anywhere an object implementing os.PathLike is accepted:

>>> import os
>>> p = PurePath('/etc')
>>> os.fspath(p)
'/etc'

The string representation of a path is the raw filesystem path itself (in native form, e.g. with backslashes under Windows), which you can pass to any function taking a file path as a string:

>>> p = PurePath('/etc')
>>> str(p)
'/etc'
>>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files')
>>> str(p)
'c:\\Program Files'

Similarly, calling bytes on a path gives the raw filesystem path as a bytes object, as encoded by os.fsencode():

>>> bytes(p)
b'/etc'

Note

Calling bytes is only recommended under Unix. Under Windows, the unicode form is the canonical representation of filesystem paths.

Accessing individual parts

To access the individual “parts” (components) of a path, use the following property:

PurePath.parts

A tuple giving access to the path’s various components:

>>> p = PurePath('/usr/bin/python3')
>>> p.parts
('/', 'usr', 'bin', 'python3')

>>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files/PSF')
>>> p.parts
('c:\\', 'Program Files', 'PSF')

(note how the drive and local root are regrouped in a single part)

Methods and properties

Pure paths provide the following methods and properties:

PurePath.drive

A string representing the drive letter or name, if any:

>>> PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files/').drive
'c:'
>>> PureWindowsPath('/Program Files/').drive
''
>>> PurePosixPath('/etc').drive
''

UNC shares are also considered drives:

>>> PureWindowsPath('//host/share/foo.txt').drive
'\\\\host\\share'
PurePath.root

A string representing the (local or global) root, if any:

>>> PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files/').root
'\\'
>>> PureWindowsPath('c:Program Files/').root
''
>>> PurePosixPath('/etc').root
'/'

UNC shares always have a root:

>>> PureWindowsPath('//host/share').root
'\\'

If the path starts with more than two successive slashes, PurePosixPath collapses them:

>>> PurePosixPath('//etc').root
'//'
>>> PurePosixPath('///etc').root
'/'
>>> PurePosixPath('////etc').root
'/'

Note

This behavior conforms to The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, paragraph 4.11 Pathname Resolution:

“A pathname that begins with two successive slashes may be interpreted in an implementation-defined manner, although more than two leading slashes shall be treated as a single slash.”

PurePath.anchor

The concatenation of the drive and root:

>>> PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files/').anchor
'c:\\'
>>> PureWindowsPath('c:Program Files/').anchor
'c:'
>>> PurePosixPath('/etc').anchor
'/'
>>> PureWindowsPath('//host/share').anchor
'\\\\host\\share\\'
PurePath.parents

An immutable sequence providing access to the logical ancestors of the path:

>>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/foo/bar/setup.py')
>>> p.parents[0]
PureWindowsPath('c:/foo/bar')
>>> p.parents[1]
PureWindowsPath('c:/foo')
>>> p.parents[2]
PureWindowsPath('c:/')

Changed in version 3.10: The parents sequence now supports slices and negative index values.

PurePath.parent

The logical parent of the path:

>>> p = PurePosixPath('/a/b/c/d')
>>> p.parent
PurePosixPath('/a/b/c')

You cannot go past an anchor, or empty path:

>>> p = PurePosixPath('/')
>>> p.parent
PurePosixPath('/')
>>> p = PurePosixPath('.')
>>> p.parent
PurePosixPath('.')

Note

This is a purely lexical operation, hence the following behaviour:

>>> p = PurePosixPath('foo/..')
>>> p.parent
PurePosixPath('foo')

If you want to walk an arbitrary filesystem path upwards, it is recommended to first call Path.resolve() so as to resolve symlinks and eliminate ".." components.

PurePath.name

A string representing the final path component, excluding the drive and root, if any:

>>> PurePosixPath('my/library/setup.py').name
'setup.py'

UNC drive names are not considered:

>>> PureWindowsPath('//some/share/setup.py').name
'setup.py'
>>> PureWindowsPath('//some/share').name
''
PurePath.suffix

The file extension of the final component, if any:

>>> PurePosixPath('my/library/setup.py').suffix
'.py'
>>> PurePosixPath('my/library.tar.gz').suffix
'.gz'
>>> PurePosixPath('my/library').suffix
''
PurePath.suffixes

A list of the path’s file extensions:

>>> PurePosixPath('my/library.tar.gar').suffixes
['.tar', '.gar']
>>> PurePosixPath('my/library.tar.gz').suffixes
['.tar', '.gz']
>>> PurePosixPath('my/library').suffixes
[]
PurePath.stem

The final path component, without its suffix:

>>> PurePosixPath('my/library.tar.gz').stem
'library.tar'
>>> PurePosixPath('my/library.tar').stem
'library'
>>> PurePosixPath('my/library').stem
'library'
PurePath.as_posix()

Return a string representation of the path with forward slashes (/):

>>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:\\windows')
>>> str(p)
'c:\\windows'
>>> p.as_posix()
'c:/windows'
PurePath.as_uri()

Represent the path as a file URI. ValueError is raised if the path isn’t absolute.

>>> p = PurePosixPath('/etc/passwd')
>>> p.as_uri()
'file:///etc/passwd'
>>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/Windows')
>>> p.as_uri()
'file:///c:/Windows'
PurePath.is_absolute()

Return whether the path is absolute or not. A path is considered absolute if it has both a root and (if the flavour allows) a drive:

>>> PurePosixPath('/a/b').is_absolute()
True
>>> PurePosixPath('a/b').is_absolute()
False

>>> PureWindowsPath('c:/a/b').is_absolute()
True
>>> PureWindowsPath('/a/b').is_absolute()
False
>>> PureWindowsPath('c:').is_absolute()
False
>>> PureWindowsPath('//some/share').is_absolute()
True
PurePath.is_relative_to(other)

Return whether or not this path is relative to the other path.

>>> p = PurePath('/etc/passwd')
>>> p.is_relative_to('/etc')
True
>>> p.is_relative_to('/usr')
False

New in version 3.9.

Deprecated since version 3.12, will be removed in version 3.14: Passing additional arguments is deprecated; if supplied, they are joined with other.

PurePath.is_reserved()

With PureWindowsPath, return True if the path is considered reserved under Windows, False otherwise. With PurePosixPath, False is always returned.

>>> PureWindowsPath('nul').is_reserved()
True
>>> PurePosixPath('nul').is_reserved()
False

File system calls on reserved paths can fail mysteriously or have unintended effects.

PurePath.joinpath(*other)

Calling this method is equivalent to combining the path with each of the other arguments in turn:

>>> PurePosixPath('/etc').joinpath('passwd')
PurePosixPath('/etc/passwd')
>>> PurePosixPath('/etc').joinpath(PurePosixPath('passwd'))
PurePosixPath('/etc/passwd')
>>> PurePosixPath('/etc').joinpath('init.d', 'apache2')
PurePosixPath('/etc/init.d/apache2')
>>> PureWindowsPath('c:').joinpath('/Program Files')
PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files')
PurePath.match(pattern)

Match this path against the provided glob-style pattern. Return True if matching is successful, False otherwise.

If pattern is relative, the path can be either relative or absolute, and matching is done from the right:

>>> PurePath('a/b.py').match('*.py')
True
>>> PurePath('/a/b/c.py').match('b/*.py')
True
>>> PurePath('/a/b/c.py').match('a/*.py')
False

If pattern is absolute, the path must be absolute, and the whole path must match:

>>> PurePath('/a.py').match('/*.py')
True
>>> PurePath('a/b.py').match('/*.py')
False

As with other methods, case-sensitivity follows platform defaults:

>>> PurePosixPath('b.py').match('*.PY')
False
>>> PureWindowsPath('b.py').match('*.PY')
True
PurePath.relative_to(other, walk_up=False)

Compute a version of this path relative to the path represented by other. If it’s impossible, ValueError is raised:

>>> p = PurePosixPath('/etc/passwd')
>>> p.relative_to('/')
PurePosixPath('etc/passwd')
>>> p.relative_to('/etc')
PurePosixPath('passwd')
>>> p.relative_to('/usr')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "pathlib.py", line 941, in relative_to
    raise ValueError(error_message.format(str(self), str(formatted)))
ValueError: '/etc/passwd' is not in the subpath of '/usr' OR one path is relative and the other is absolute.

When walk_up is False (the default), the path must start with other. When the argument is True, .. entries may be added to form the relative path. In all other cases, such as the paths referencing different drives, ValueError is raised.:

>>> p.relative_to('/usr', walk_up=True)
PurePosixPath('../etc/passwd')
>>> p.relative_to('foo', walk_up=True)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "pathlib.py", line 941, in relative_to
    raise ValueError(error_message.format(str(self), str(formatted)))
ValueError: '/etc/passwd' is not on the same drive as 'foo' OR one path is relative and the other is absolute.

Warning

This function is part of PurePath and works with strings. It does not check or access the underlying file structure. This can impact the walk_up option as it assumes that no symlinks are present in the path; call resolve() first if necessary to resolve symlinks.

New in version 3.12: The walk_up argument (old behavior is the same as walk_up=False).

Deprecated since version 3.12, will be removed in version 3.14: Passing additional positional arguments is deprecated; if supplied, they are joined with other.

PurePath.with_name(name)

Return a new path with the name changed. If the original path doesn’t have a name, ValueError is raised:

>>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/Downloads/pathlib.tar.gz')
>>> p.with_name('setup.py')
PureWindowsPath('c:/Downloads/setup.py')
>>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/')
>>> p.with_name('setup.py')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/home/antoine/cpython/default/Lib/pathlib.py", line 751, in with_name
    raise ValueError("%r has an empty name" % (self,))
ValueError: PureWindowsPath('c:/') has an empty name
PurePath.with_stem(stem)

Return a new path with the stem changed. If the original path doesn’t have a name, ValueError is raised:

>>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/Downloads/draft.txt')
>>> p.with_stem('final')
PureWindowsPath('c:/Downloads/final.txt')
>>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/Downloads/pathlib.tar.gz')
>>> p.with_stem('lib')
PureWindowsPath('c:/Downloads/lib.gz')
>>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/')
>>> p.with_stem('')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/home/antoine/cpython/default/Lib/pathlib.py", line 861, in with_stem
    return self.with_name(stem + self.suffix)
  File "/home/antoine/cpython/default/Lib/pathlib.py", line 851, in with_name
    raise ValueError("%r has an empty name" % (self,))
ValueError: PureWindowsPath('c:/') has an empty name

New in version 3.9.

PurePath.with_suffix(suffix)

Return a new path with the suffix changed. If the original path doesn’t have a suffix, the new suffix is appended instead. If the suffix is an empty string, the original suffix is removed:

>>> p = PureWindowsPath('c:/Downloads/pathlib.tar.gz')
>>> p.with_suffix('.bz2')
PureWindowsPath('c:/Downloads/pathlib.tar.bz2')
>>> p = PureWindowsPath('README')
>>> p.with_suffix('.txt')
PureWindowsPath('README.txt')
>>> p = PureWindowsPath('README.txt')
>>> p.with_suffix('')
PureWindowsPath('README')

Concrete paths

Concrete paths are subclasses of the pure path classes. In addition to operations provided by the latter, they also provide methods to do system calls on path objects. There are three ways to instantiate concrete paths:

class pathlib.Path(*pathsegments)

A subclass of PurePath, this class represents concrete paths of the system’s path flavour (instantiating it creates either a PosixPath or a WindowsPath):

>>> Path('setup.py')
PosixPath('setup.py')

pathsegments is specified similarly to PurePath.

class pathlib.PosixPath(*pathsegments)

A subclass of Path and PurePosixPath, this class represents concrete non-Windows filesystem paths:

>>> PosixPath('/etc')
PosixPath('/etc')

pathsegments is specified similarly to PurePath.

class pathlib.WindowsPath(*pathsegments)

A subclass of Path and PureWindowsPath, this class represents concrete Windows filesystem paths:

>>> WindowsPath('c:/Program Files/')
WindowsPath('c:/Program Files')

pathsegments is specified similarly to PurePath.

You can only instantiate the class flavour that corresponds to your system (allowing system calls on non-compatible path flavours could lead to bugs or failures in your application):

>>> import os
>>> os.name
'posix'
>>> Path('setup.py')
PosixPath('setup.py')
>>> PosixPath('setup.py')
PosixPath('setup.py')
>>> WindowsPath('setup.py')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "pathlib.py", line 798, in __new__
    % (cls.__name__,))
NotImplementedError: cannot instantiate 'WindowsPath' on your system

Methods

Concrete paths provide the following methods in addition to pure paths methods. Many of these methods can raise an OSError if a system call fails (for example because the path doesn’t exist).

Changed in version 3.8: exists(), is_dir(), is_file(), is_mount(), is_symlink(), is_block_device(), is_char_device(), is_fifo(), is_socket() now return False instead of raising an exception for paths that contain characters unrepresentable at the OS level.

classmethod Path.cwd()

Return a new path object representing the current directory (as returned by os.getcwd()):

>>> Path.cwd()
PosixPath('/home/antoine/pathlib')
classmethod Path.home()

Return a new path object representing the user’s home directory (as returned by os.path.expanduser() with ~ construct). If the home directory can’t be resolved, RuntimeError is raised.

>>> Path.home()
PosixPath('/home/antoine')

New in version 3.5.

Path.stat(*, follow_symlinks=True)

Return a os.stat_result object containing information about this path, like os.stat(). The result is looked up at each call to this method.

This method normally follows symlinks; to stat a symlink add the argument follow_symlinks=False, or use lstat().

>>> p = Path('setup.py')
>>> p.stat().st_size
956
>>> p.stat().st_mtime
1327883547.852554

Changed in version 3.10: The follow_symlinks parameter was added.

Path.chmod(mode, *, follow_symlinks=True)

Change the file mode and permissions, like os.chmod().

This method normally follows symlinks. Some Unix flavours support changing permissions on the symlink itself; on these platforms you may add the argument follow_symlinks=False, or use lchmod().

>>> p = Path('setup.py')
>>> p.stat().st_mode
33277
>>> p.chmod(0o444)
>>> p.stat().st_mode
33060

Changed in version 3.10: The follow_symlinks parameter was added.

Path.exists()

Whether the path points to an existing file or directory:

>>> Path('.').exists()
True
>>> Path('setup.py').exists()
True
>>> Path('/etc').exists()
True
>>> Path('nonexistentfile').exists()
False

Note

If the path points to a symlink, exists() returns whether the symlink points to an existing file or directory.

Path.expanduser()

Return a new path with expanded ~ and ~user constructs, as returned by os.path.expanduser(). If a home directory can’t be resolved, RuntimeError is raised.

>>> p = PosixPath('~/films/Monty Python')
>>> p.expanduser()
PosixPath('/home/eric/films/Monty Python')

New in version 3.5.

Path.glob(pattern)

Glob the given relative pattern in the directory represented by this path, yielding all matching files (of any kind):

>>> sorted(Path('.').glob('*.py'))
[PosixPath('pathlib.py'), PosixPath('setup.py'), PosixPath('test_pathlib.py')]
>>> sorted(Path('.').glob('*/*.py'))
[PosixPath('docs/conf.py')]

Patterns are the same as for fnmatch, with the addition of “**” which means “this directory and all subdirectories, recursively”. In other words, it enables recursive globbing:

>>> sorted(Path('.').glob('**/*.py'))
[PosixPath('build/lib/pathlib.py'),
 PosixPath('docs/conf.py'),
 PosixPath('pathlib.py'),
 PosixPath('setup.py'),
 PosixPath('test_pathlib.py')]

Note

Using the “**” pattern in large directory trees may consume an inordinate amount of time.

Raises an auditing event pathlib.Path.glob with arguments self, pattern.

Changed in version 3.11: Return only directories if pattern ends with a pathname components separator (sep or altsep).

Path.group()

Return the name of the group owning the file. KeyError is raised if the file’s gid isn’t found in the system database.

Path.is_dir()

Return True if the path points to a directory (or a symbolic link pointing to a directory), False if it points to another kind of file.

False is also returned if the path doesn’t exist or is a broken symlink; other errors (such as permission errors) are propagated.

Path.is_file()

Return True if the path points to a regular file (or a symbolic link pointing to a regular file), False if it points to another kind of file.

False is also returned if the path doesn’t exist or is a broken symlink; other errors (such as permission errors) are propagated.

Path.is_junction()

Return True if the path points to a junction, and False for any other type of file. Currently only Windows supports junctions.

New in version 3.12.

Path.is_mount()

Return True if the path is a mount point: a point in a file system where a different file system has been mounted. On POSIX, the function checks whether path’s parent, path/.., is on a different device than path, or whether path/.. and path point to the same i-node on the same device — this should detect mount points for all Unix and POSIX variants. On Windows, a mount point is considered to be a drive letter root (e.g. c:\), a UNC share (e.g. \\server\share), or a mounted filesystem directory.

New in version 3.7.

Changed in version 3.12: Windows support was added.

Return True if the path points to a symbolic link, False otherwise.

False is also returned if the path doesn’t exist; other errors (such as permission errors) are propagated.

Path.is_socket()

Return True if the path points to a Unix socket (or a symbolic link pointing to a Unix socket), False if it points to another kind of file.

False is also returned if the path doesn’t exist or is a broken symlink; other errors (such as permission errors) are propagated.

Path.is_fifo()

Return True if the path points to a FIFO (or a symbolic link pointing to a FIFO), False if it points to another kind of file.

False is also returned if the path doesn’t exist or is a broken symlink; other errors (such as permission errors) are propagated.

Path.is_block_device()

Return True if the path points to a block device (or a symbolic link pointing to a block device), False if it points to another kind of file.

False is also returned if the path doesn’t exist or is a broken symlink; other errors (such as permission errors) are propagated.

Path.is_char_device()

Return True if the path points to a character device (or a symbolic link pointing to a character device), False if it points to another kind of file.

False is also returned if the path doesn’t exist or is a broken symlink; other errors (such as permission errors) are propagated.

Path.iterdir()

When the path points to a directory, yield path objects of the directory contents:

>>> p = Path('docs')
>>> for child in p.iterdir(): child
...
PosixPath('docs/conf.py')
PosixPath('docs/_templates')
PosixPath('docs/make.bat')
PosixPath('docs/index.rst')
PosixPath('docs/_build')
PosixPath('docs/_static')
PosixPath('docs/Makefile')

The children are yielded in arbitrary order, and the special entries '.' and '..' are not included. If a file is removed from or added to the directory after creating the iterator, whether a path object for that file be included is unspecified.

Path.walk(top_down=True, on_error=None, follow_symlinks=False)

Generate the file names in a directory tree by walking the tree either top-down or bottom-up.

For each directory in the directory tree rooted at self (including self but excluding ‘.’ and ‘..’), the method yields a 3-tuple of (dirpath, dirnames, filenames).

dirpath is a Path to the directory currently being walked, dirnames is a list of strings for the names of subdirectories in dirpath (excluding '.' and '..'), and filenames is a list of strings for the names of the non-directory files in dirpath. To get a full path (which begins with self) to a file or directory in dirpath, do dirpath / name. Whether or not the lists are sorted is file system-dependent.

If the optional argument top_down is true (which is the default), the triple for a directory is generated before the triples for any of its subdirectories (directories are walked top-down). If top_down is false, the triple for a directory is generated after the triples for all of its subdirectories (directories are walked bottom-up). No matter the value of top_down, the list of subdirectories is retrieved before the triples for the directory and its subdirectories are walked.

When top_down is true, the caller can modify the dirnames list in-place (for example, using del or slice assignment), and Path.walk() will only recurse into the subdirectories whose names remain in dirnames. This can be used to prune the search, or to impose a specific order of visiting, or even to inform Path.walk() about directories the caller creates or renames before it resumes Path.walk() again. Modifying dirnames when top_down is false has no effect on the behavior of Path.walk() since the directories in dirnames have already been generated by the time dirnames is yielded to the caller.

By default, errors from os.scandir() are ignored. If the optional argument on_error is specified, it should be a callable; it will be called with one argument, an OSError instance. The callable can handle the error to continue the walk or re-raise it to stop the walk. Note that the filename is available as the filename attribute of the exception object.

By default, Path.walk() does not follow symbolic links, and instead adds them to the filenames list. Set follow_symlinks to true to resolve symlinks and place them in dirnames and filenames as appropriate for their targets, and consequently visit directories pointed to by symlinks (where supported).

Note

Be aware that setting follow_symlinks to true can lead to infinite recursion if a link points to a parent directory of itself. Path.walk() does not keep track of the directories it has already visited.

Note

Path.walk() assumes the directories it walks are not modified during execution. For example, if a directory from dirnames has been replaced with a symlink and follow_symlinks is false, Path.walk() will still try to descend into it. To prevent such behavior, remove directories from dirnames as appropriate.

Note

Unlike os.walk(), Path.walk() lists symlinks to directories in filenames if follow_symlinks is false.

This example displays the number of bytes used by all files in each directory, while ignoring __pycache__ directories:

from pathlib import Path
for root, dirs, files in Path("cpython/Lib/concurrent").walk(on_error=print):
  print(
      root,
      "consumes",
      sum((root / file).stat().st_size for file in files),
      "bytes in",
      len(files),
      "non-directory files"
  )
  if '__pycache__' in dirs:
        dirs.remove('__pycache__')

This next example is a simple implementation of shutil.rmtree(). Walking the tree bottom-up is essential as rmdir() doesn’t allow deleting a directory before it is empty:

# Delete everything reachable from the directory "top".
# CAUTION:  This is dangerous! For example, if top == Path('/'),
# it could delete all of your files.
for root, dirs, files in top.walk(top_down=False):
    for name in files:
        (root / name).unlink()
    for name in dirs:
        (root / name).rmdir()

New in version 3.12.

Path.lchmod(mode)

Like Path.chmod() but, if the path points to a symbolic link, the symbolic link’s mode is changed rather than its target’s.

Path.lstat()

Like Path.stat() but, if the path points to a symbolic link, return the symbolic link’s information rather than its target’s.

Path.mkdir(mode=0o777, parents=False, exist_ok=False)

Create a new directory at this given path. If mode is given, it is combined with the process’ umask value to determine the file mode and access flags. If the path already exists, FileExistsError is raised.

If parents is true, any missing parents of this path are created as needed; they are created with the default permissions without taking mode into account (mimicking the POSIX mkdir -p command).

If parents is false (the default), a missing parent raises FileNotFoundError.

If exist_ok is false (the default), FileExistsError is raised if the target directory already exists.

If exist_ok is true, FileExistsError exceptions will be ignored (same behavior as the POSIX mkdir -p command), but only if the last path component is not an existing non-directory file.

Changed in version 3.5: The exist_ok parameter was added.

Path.open(mode='r', buffering=- 1, encoding=None, errors=None, newline=None)

Open the file pointed to by the path, like the built-in open() function does:

>>> p = Path('setup.py')
>>> with p.open() as f:
...     f.readline()
...
'#!/usr/bin/env python3\n'
Path.owner()

Return the name of the user owning the file. KeyError is raised if the file’s uid isn’t found in the system database.

Path.read_bytes()

Return the binary contents of the pointed-to file as a bytes object:

>>> p = Path('my_binary_file')
>>> p.write_bytes(b'Binary file contents')
20
>>> p.read_bytes()
b'Binary file contents'

New in version 3.5.

Path.read_text(encoding=None, errors=None)

Return the decoded contents of the pointed-to file as a string:

>>> p = Path('my_text_file')
>>> p.write_text('Text file contents')
18
>>> p.read_text()
'Text file contents'

The file is opened and then closed. The optional parameters have the same meaning as in open().

New in version 3.5.

Return the path to which the symbolic link points (as returned by os.readlink()):

>>> p = Path('mylink')
>>> p.symlink_to('setup.py')
>>> p.readlink()
PosixPath('setup.py')

New in version 3.9.

Path.rename(target)

Rename this file or directory to the given target, and return a new Path instance pointing to target. On Unix, if target exists and is a file, it will be replaced silently if the user has permission. On Windows, if target exists, FileExistsError will be raised. target can be either a string or another path object:

>>> p = Path('foo')
>>> p.open('w').write('some text')
9
>>> target = Path('bar')
>>> p.rename(target)
PosixPath('bar')
>>> target.open().read()
'some text'

The target path may be absolute or relative. Relative paths are interpreted relative to the current working directory, not the directory of the Path object.

It is implemented in terms of os.rename() and gives the same guarantees.

Changed in version 3.8: Added return value, return the new Path instance.

Path.replace(target)

Rename this file or directory to the given target, and return a new Path instance pointing to target. If target points to an existing file or empty directory, it will be unconditionally replaced.

The target path may be absolute or relative. Relative paths are interpreted relative to the current working directory, not the directory of the Path object.

Changed in version 3.8: Added return value, return the new Path instance.

Path.absolute()

Make the path absolute, without normalization or resolving symlinks. Returns a new path object:

>>> p = Path('tests')
>>> p
PosixPath('tests')
>>> p.absolute()
PosixPath('/home/antoine/pathlib/tests')
Path.resolve(strict=False)

Make the path absolute, resolving any symlinks. A new path object is returned:

>>> p = Path()
>>> p
PosixPath('.')
>>> p.resolve()
PosixPath('/home/antoine/pathlib')

“..” components are also eliminated (this is the only method to do so):

>>> p = Path('docs/../setup.py')
>>> p.resolve()
PosixPath('/home/antoine/pathlib/setup.py')

If the path doesn’t exist and strict is True, FileNotFoundError is raised. If strict is False, the path is resolved as far as possible and any remainder is appended without checking whether it exists. If an infinite loop is encountered along the resolution path, RuntimeError is raised.

New in version 3.6: The strict argument (pre-3.6 behavior is strict).

Path.rglob(pattern)

Glob the given relative pattern recursively. This is like calling Path.glob() with “**/” added in front of the pattern:

>>> sorted(Path().rglob("*.py"))
[PosixPath('build/lib/pathlib.py'),
 PosixPath('docs/conf.py'),
 PosixPath('pathlib.py'),
 PosixPath('setup.py'),
 PosixPath('test_pathlib.py')]

Raises an auditing event pathlib.Path.rglob with arguments self, pattern.

Changed in version 3.11: Return only directories if pattern ends with a pathname components separator (sep or altsep).

Path.rmdir()

Remove this directory. The directory must be empty.

Path.samefile(other_path)

Return whether this path points to the same file as other_path, which can be either a Path object, or a string. The semantics are similar to os.path.samefile() and os.path.samestat().

An OSError can be raised if either file cannot be accessed for some reason.

>>> p = Path('spam')
>>> q = Path('eggs')
>>> p.samefile(q)
False
>>> p.samefile('spam')
True

New in version 3.5.

Make this path a symbolic link to target. Under Windows, target_is_directory must be true (default False) if the link’s target is a directory. Under POSIX, target_is_directory’s value is ignored.

>>> p = Path('mylink')
>>> p.symlink_to('setup.py')
>>> p.resolve()
PosixPath('/home/antoine/pathlib/setup.py')
>>> p.stat().st_size
956
>>> p.lstat().st_size
8

Note

The order of arguments (link, target) is the reverse of os.symlink()’s.

Make this path a hard link to the same file as target.

Note

The order of arguments (link, target) is the reverse of os.link()’s.

New in version 3.10.

Path.touch(mode=0o666, exist_ok=True)

Create a file at this given path. If mode is given, it is combined with the process’ umask value to determine the file mode and access flags. If the file already exists, the function succeeds if exist_ok is true (and its modification time is updated to the current time), otherwise FileExistsError is raised.

Remove this file or symbolic link. If the path points to a directory, use Path.rmdir() instead.

If missing_ok is false (the default), FileNotFoundError is raised if the path does not exist.

If missing_ok is true, FileNotFoundError exceptions will be ignored (same behavior as the POSIX rm -f command).

Changed in version 3.8: The missing_ok parameter was added.

Path.write_bytes(data)

Open the file pointed to in bytes mode, write data to it, and close the file:

>>> p = Path('my_binary_file')
>>> p.write_bytes(b'Binary file contents')
20
>>> p.read_bytes()
b'Binary file contents'

An existing file of the same name is overwritten.

New in version 3.5.

Path.write_text(data, encoding=None, errors=None, newline=None)

Open the file pointed to in text mode, write data to it, and close the file:

>>> p = Path('my_text_file')
>>> p.write_text('Text file contents')
18
>>> p.read_text()
'Text file contents'

An existing file of the same name is overwritten. The optional parameters have the same meaning as in open().

New in version 3.5.

Changed in version 3.10: The newline parameter was added.

Correspondence to tools in the os module

Below is a table mapping various os functions to their corresponding PurePath/Path equivalent.

Note

Not all pairs of functions/methods below are equivalent. Some of them, despite having some overlapping use-cases, have different semantics. They include os.path.abspath() and Path.absolute(), os.path.relpath() and PurePath.relative_to().

os and os.path

pathlib

os.path.abspath()

Path.absolute() 1

os.path.realpath()

Path.resolve()

os.chmod()

Path.chmod()

os.mkdir()

Path.mkdir()

os.makedirs()

Path.mkdir()

os.rename()

Path.rename()

os.replace()

Path.replace()

os.rmdir()

Path.rmdir()

os.remove(), os.unlink()

Path.unlink()

os.getcwd()

Path.cwd()

os.path.exists()

Path.exists()

os.path.expanduser()

Path.expanduser() and Path.home()

os.listdir()

Path.iterdir()

os.walk()

Path.walk()

os.path.isdir()

Path.is_dir()

os.path.isfile()

Path.is_file()

os.path.islink()

Path.is_symlink()

os.link()

Path.hardlink_to()

os.symlink()

Path.symlink_to()

os.readlink()

Path.readlink()

os.path.relpath()

PurePath.relative_to() 2

os.stat()

Path.stat(), Path.owner(), Path.group()

os.path.isabs()

PurePath.is_absolute()

os.path.join()

PurePath.joinpath()

os.path.basename()

PurePath.name

os.path.dirname()

PurePath.parent

os.path.samefile()

Path.samefile()

os.path.splitext()

PurePath.stem and PurePath.suffix

Footnotes

1

os.path.abspath() normalizes the resulting path, which may change its meaning in the presence of symlinks, while Path.absolute() does not.

2

PurePath.relative_to() requires self to be the subpath of the argument, but os.path.relpath() does not.