Get a filtered list of files in a directory

user_263328 0
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I am trying to get a list of files in a directory using Python, but I do not want a list of ALL the files.

What I essentially want is the ability to do something like the following but using Python and not executing ls.

ls 145592*.jpg

If there is no built-in method for this, I am currently thinking of writing a for loop to iterate through the results of an os.listdir() and to append all the matching files to a new list.

However, there are a lot of files in that directory and therefore I am hoping there is a more efficient method (or a built-in method).

directory-listing glob wildcard filesystems python
14 Answers
import glob

jpgFilenamesList = glob.glob('145592*.jpg')

See glob in python documenttion

Ignacio_Vazquez-Abrams_208620

glob.glob() is definitely the way to do it (as per Ignacio). However, if you do need more complicated matching, you can do it with a list comprehension and re.match(), something like so:

files = [f for f in os.listdir('.') if re.match(r'[0-9]+.*\.jpg', f)]

More flexible, but as you note, less efficient.

user_687070

Filter with glob module:

Import glob

import glob

Wild Cards:

files=glob.glob("data/*")
print(files)

Out:

['data/ks_10000_0', 'data/ks_1000_0', 'data/ks_100_0', 'data/ks_100_1',
'data/ks_100_2', 'data/ks_106_0', 'data/ks_19_0', 'data/ks_200_0', 'data/ks_200_1', 
'data/ks_300_0', 'data/ks_30_0', 'data/ks_400_0', 'data/ks_40_0', 'data/ks_45_0', 
'data/ks_4_0', 'data/ks_500_0', 'data/ks_50_0', 'data/ks_50_1', 'data/ks_60_0', 
'data/ks_82_0', 'data/ks_lecture_dp_1', 'data/ks_lecture_dp_2']

Fiter extension .txt:

files = glob.glob("/home/ach/*/*.txt")

A single character

glob.glob("/home/ach/file?.txt")

Number Ranges

glob.glob("/home/ach/*[0-9]*")

Alphabet Ranges

glob.glob("/home/ach/[a-c]*")
user_61778770

use os.walk to recursively list your files

import os
root = "/home"
pattern = "145992"
alist_filter = ['jpg','bmp','png','gif'] 
path=os.path.join(root,"mydir_to_scan")
for r,d,f in os.walk(path):
    for file in f:
        if file[-3:] in alist_filter and pattern in file:
            print os.path.join(root,file)
user_1315270

You can use pathlib that is available in Python standard library 3.4 and above.

from pathlib import Path

files = [f for f in Path.cwd().iterdir() if f.match("145592*.jpg")]
user_300380

You can define pattern and check for it. Here I have taken both start and end pattern and looking for them in the filename. FILES contains the list of all the files in a directory.

import os
PATTERN_START = "145592"
PATTERN_END = ".jpg"
CURRENT_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))
for r,d,FILES in os.walk(CURRENT_DIR):
    for FILE in FILES:
        if PATTERN_START in FILE.startwith(PATTERN_START) and PATTERN_END in FILE.endswith(PATTERN_END):
            print FILE
user_89303950

You can simplify it using List Comprehensions and a regex checker inside it to include image files with the specified postfix.

import re
import os

dir_name = "."
files = [os.path.join(dir_name, f) for f in os.listdir(dir_name) if re.match(r'.*\.(jpg|jpeg|png)', f)]
user_70206110

You can use subprocess.check_ouput() as

import subprocess

list_files = subprocess.check_output("ls 145992*.jpg", shell=True)

Of course, the string between quotes can be anything you want to execute in the shell, and store the output.

user_40097030
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