Deleting files based on day within filename

user_19103285 0
Viewed 27

I have a directory with files like: data_Mon_15-8-22.csv, data_Tue_16-8-22.csv, data_Mon_22-8-22.csv etc and I am trying to delete all but the Monday files. However, my script doesn't seem to differentiate between the filenames and just deletes everything despite me stating it. Where did I go wrong? Any help would be much appreciated!

My Code:

def file_delete():
    directory = pathlib.Path('/Path/To/Data')
    for file in directory.glob('data_*.csv'):
        if file != 'data_Mon_*.csv':
            os.remove(file)]
python
2 Answers

if all Monday files start with "data_Mon_" then you might use str.startswith:

def file_delete():
    directory = pathlib.Path('/Path/To/Data')
    for file in directory.glob('data_*.csv'):
        if not file.name.startswith('data_Mon_'):
            os.remove(file)
user_95060020 
if file != 'data_Mon_*.csv'

There's two problems here:

file is compared against the string 'data_Mon_*.csv'. Since file isn't a string, these two objects will never be equal. So the if condition will always be true. To fix this, you need to get the file's name, rather than using the file object directly.

Even if you fix this, the string 'data_Mon_*.csv' is literal. In other words, the * is a *. Unlike directory.glob('data_*.csv'), this will only match a * rather than match "anything" as in a glob expression. In order to fix this, you need to use a regular expression to match against your file name.

user_14405650
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