Loading files from directory from user

Question

I'm trying to load a lot of files from a directory. I used to be able to do it by having this

#directory where all data will be stored
dataDir="C:/Users/me/Desktop/Data/"
Files=[] #list of files
for file in os.listdir(dataDir):
    Files.append(scipy.io.loadmat(dataDir+file))

But now, I'm trying to have the user select the folder so I have this:

import tkinter
from tkinter import filedialog
from tkinter import *

root=tkinter.Tk()
filename=filedialog.askdirectory(parent=root,title='Choose a file')
print (filename)


#directory where all data will be stored
dataDir=('%s',filename)
Files=[] #list of files
for file in os.listdir(dataDir):
    Files.append(scipy.io.loadmat(dataDir+file))

and it is giving me this error: "for file in os.listdir(dataDir): TypeError: listdir: path should be string, bytes, os.PathLike or None, not tuple)

I tried making filename into a string by doing str(filename), and it still wouldn't work. Any ideas?

Answer 1

When you define dataDir = ('%s', filename) you are creating a tuple with two elements. One is '%s' and the other the value of filename .

If I understand correctly you shoud use dataDir = '%s' % filename . That way dataDir will be a string with the value of filename .

Answer 2

You create tuple in command

dataDir=('%s',filename) 

and you use it in listdir(dataDir) which expect string

Use filename directly in listdir

 for file in os.listdir(filename):

Answer 3

The error states that the path you give listdir should be a str and that you gave it a tuple .

With dataDir=('%s',filename) , dataDir is a tuple containing two strings. However, filename is already a str . Instead of os.listdir(dataDir) , try os.listdir(filename) .

You will need to import os .