What is the Python way to walk a directory tree?

Question

I feel that assigning files, and folders and doing the += [item] part is a bit hackish. Any suggestions? I\'m using Python 3.2

from os import *
from os.pat         


        

Answer 1

Instead of the built-in os.walk and os.path.walk, I use something derived from this piece of code I found suggested elsewhere which I had originally linked to but have replaced with inlined source:

import os
import stat

class DirectoryStatWalker:
    # a forward iterator that traverses a directory tree, and
    # returns the filename and additional file information

    def __init__(self, directory):
        self.stack = [directory]
        self.files = []
        self.index = 0

    def __getitem__(self, index):
        while 1:
            try:
                file = self.files[self.index]
                self.index = self.index + 1
            except IndexError:
                # pop next directory from stack
                self.directory = self.stack.pop()
                self.files = os.listdir(self.directory)
                self.index = 0
            else:
                # got a filename
                fullname = os.path.join(self.directory, file)
                st = os.stat(fullname)
                mode = st[stat.ST_MODE]
                if stat.S_ISDIR(mode) and not stat.S_ISLNK(mode):
                    self.stack.append(fullname)
                return fullname, st

if __name__ == '__main__':
    for file, st in DirectoryStatWalker("/usr/include"):
        print file, st[stat.ST_SIZE]

It walks the directories recursively and is quite efficient and easy to read.