How to check to see if a folder contains files using python 3

Question

I\'ve searched everywhere for this answer but can\'t find it.

I\'m trying to come up with a script that will search for a particular subfolder then check if it conta

Answer 1

You can use this simple code:

dir_contents = [x for x in os.listdir('.') if not x.startswith('.')]
if len(dir_contents) > 0:
    print("Directory contains files")

It checks for files and directories in the current working directory (.). You can change . in os.listdir() to check any other directory.

Answer 2

With pathlib this can be done as follows:

import pathlib

# helper function
def is_empty(_dir: pathlib.PAth) -> bool:
    return not bool([_ for _ in _dir.iterdir()])

# create empty dir
_dir = pathlib.Path("abc")

# check if dir empty
is_empty(_dir)  # will retuen True

# add file s to folder and call it again

Answer 3

I have follews Bash checking if folder has contents answer.

os.walk('.') returns the complete files under a directory and if there thousands it may be inefficient. Instead following command find "$target" -mindepth 1 -print -quit returns first found file and quits. If it returns an empty string, which means folder is empty.

You can check if a directory is empty using find, and processing its output

def is_dir_empty(absolute_path):
    cmd = ["find", absolute_path, "-mindepth", "1", "-print", "-quit"]
    output = subprocess.check_output(cmd).decode("utf-8").strip()
    return not output

print is_dir_empty("some/path/here")

Answer 4

Adding to @Jon Clements’ pathlib answer, I wanted to check if the folder is empty with pathlib but without creating a set:

from pathlib import Path

# shorter version from @vogdb
is_empty = not any(Path('some/path/here').iterdir())

# similar but unnecessary complex
is_empty = not bool(sorted(Path('some/path/here').rglob('*')))

vogdb method attempts iterates over all files in the given directory. If there is no files, any() will be False. We negate it with not so that is_empty is True if no files and False if files.

sorted(Path(path_here).rglob('*')) return a list of sorted PosixPah items. If there is no items, it returns an empty list, which is False. So is_empty will be True if the path is empty and false if the path have something

Similar idea results {} and [] gives the same: