os.path.walk() to get full path of all files

[dude]

My goal is create a list of absolute paths for all files in a given
directory (any number of levels deep).

root
----dir1
--------file1
--------file2
--------dir2
------------file3
--------dir3
-------------dir4
------------------file4
----file5

So the above would return:
[root/dir1/file1, root/dir1/file2, root/dir1/dir2/file3, etc...]

I've been trying different ways of using os.path.walk() for that, but
I can't find an elegant way. Anyone know of something simple to
accomplish that?

[Alexander Kapps]

Try this:

file_list = []
for root, _, filenames in os.walk(root_path):
for filename in filenames:
file_list.append(os.path.join(root, filename))

for x in file_list:
print x

[dude]

awesome, that worked. I'm not sure how the magic is working with your underscores there, but it's doing what I need. thanks.

[dude]

[Benjamin Kaplan]

On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 5:00 PM, dude <erni...@gmail.com> wrote:
> awesome, that worked.  I'm not sure how the magic is working with your underscores there, but it's doing what I need.  thanks.

> --

It's not magic at all. _ is just a variable name. When someone names a
variable _, it's just to let you know that they won't actually be
using that variable. In this case, os.walk returns three things: the
root, the list of directories, and the list of files. You only need
two of those for your code, so you ignore the third.

[Alexander Kapps]

On 16.03.2011 22:00, dude wrote:
> awesome, that worked. I'm not sure how the magic is working with your underscores there, but it's doing what I need. thanks.

The underscore is no magic here. It's just a conventional variable
name, saying "I m unused". One could also write:

for root, UNUSED, filenames in os.walk(root_path):
...

BTW. Please quote enough of the posts you reply to. Most people
access this list/newsgroup per mail client or usenet reader, not per
a webpage, so without quoting, they might not see the context of our
post. Thank you.

[Laurent Claessens]

> file_list = []
> for root, _, filenames in os.walk(root_path):
> for filename in filenames:
> file_list.append(os.path.join(root, filename))

What does the notation "_" stands for ? Is it a sort of /dev/null ?

I know that in the terminal it represents the last printed text.

Laurent

[Tim Golden]

It's a convention for saying "I don't really care about this
particular value which is returned from that function". You
could, at your whim, use "dontcare" or "x" or whatever.

TJG

[Jussi Piitulainen]

Laurent Claessens writes:

> > file_list = []
> > for root, _, filenames in os.walk(root_path):
> > for filename in filenames:
> > file_list.append(os.path.join(root, filename))
>
> What does the notation "_" stands for ? Is it a sort of /dev/null ?

>>> x, _, y = 1, "hukairs", 3
>>> x, y
(1, 3)
>>> _
'hukairs'
>>>