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Handling file paths

What is pathlib?

pathlib is a built-in (python-3) package for handling filesystem paths.

pathlib offers helpful ways to perform a variety of operations, including:

  • Specifying paths to files / folders using simple, clear syntax
  • Traversing the filesystem (i.e. getting the parents / children of a given file / folder)
  • Composing paths based on constituent elements (e.g. by extending a root path to a folder with a subfolder / file name)

See How do I use it? for examples illustrating the above.

Why should I care?

The key strengths of pathlib include:

  • Simplicity: pathlib objects are easy to create, extend and reuse
  • Functionality: pathlib offers functionality that storing paths inside strings does not, including
  • Getting file names and stems (aka names without extensions)
  • Getting the names of parent folders
  • Accessing the name of the current working directory
  • Listing the contents of nested folders
  • Reusability: pathlib is OS-agnostic, meaning code will work with both Windows and Linux filesystems

How do I use it?

The steps below show briefly how to make use of pathlib.

This is by no means an exhaustive walkthrough for everything you can do with pathlib - for more information, see the pathlib-docs.

Getting started

Import pathlib or pathlib2 (the python-2 backwards compatible version)

import pathlib

In pathlib, pathlib.Path objects are the key components. You can define Path objects and access attributes / methods to perform a wide variety of operations

For example, you can access the current working directory with the cwd attribute.

Pass strings to Path constructor to create a Path object

print("CWD (again):", cwd_path)

print("Absolute CWD:", cwd_abspath)

Path attributes

The following examples show how pathlib makes it easier to extract specific attributes of a path.

Example: absolute path to the current file

print("Path to file:", this_file_path)

Example: get the file name

print("File name:", this_file_path.name)

Example: get the file name without extension (aka the stem)

print("File stem:", this_file_path.stem)

Example: get the parent directory

print("Parent folder:", this_file_path.parent)

To see all the options (there are many!) use help(pathlib.Path) or see the pathlib-docs.

Path composition

pathlib helps with traversing the directory tree.

  • Slashes join elements of a path.
path1 = pathlib.Path("parent")
print("Path 1:", path1.resolve())

path2 = pathlib.Path("child")
print("Path 2:", path2.resolve())

path3 = path1 / path2
print("Path 3:", path3.resolve())
  • .. indicates the parent directory
path4 = path1 / path2 / pathlib.Path("..")
print("Path 4:", path4.resolve())  # This should be the same as path1

Only the first element needs to be a path - the rest can be strings!

path1 = pathlib.Path("parent")
print("Path 1:", path1.resolve())

path2 = path1 / "child"
print("Path 2:", path2.resolve())

path3 = path2 / ".."
print("Path 3:", path3.resolve())  # This should be the same as path1

Reading a file

The open method on the Path object can be used to access a file.

file_path = pathlib.Path("..") / "data" / "example.txt"

with file_path.open("r") as file:
    content = file.read()
    print(content)

Example: load data into pandas DataFrame

pathlib Paths are accepted by most pandas methods for reading data. This example shows how to do this for a real RAP project:

import pandas as pd
import pyreadstat  # needed to parse sav files in spss
import pathlib2  # This is just a backwards compatible pathlib!

# Add parameters
BASE_DIR = pathlib2.Path(r"\\<path>\Publication\RAP")
PUPIL_DIR = BASE_DIR / "Inputs" / "PupilData"
PUPIL_FILE = "SDD2018 - Stage 14 - 290519.sav"
PUPIL_DATA_PATH = PUPIL_DIR / PUPIL_FILE

pupil_data = pd.read_spss(PUPIL_DATA_PATH)

External references

Last update: March 1, 2024
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