How do I read files within directory and then come out and read files within next directory python?

Question

I am new to python and i want to do something like this -

 mainDirec/

      subdirec1/ files.... 

      subdirec2/files....     

How do I go from mainDirec then subdirec1 and read all files and then go back and do the same for subdirec2?

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

You don't need to "go into" directories/subdirectories to access them in python (or any other language for that matter). There are two types of paths:

1. Absolute (always starts at the root folder eg "/home/username/project/data.txt" )

2. Relative (relative to the current directory or directory in which an executable script is contained (if you have "/home/username/project/script.py" and "/home/username/project/data.txt" , if you want to access "data.txt" from "script.py" , they are in the same dir so you can reference it in your code with the relative path "data.txt" or "./data.txt" )

You should read up on relative/absolute paths. In fact I would suggest any beginner programmer read the following tutorial: https://ryanstutorials.net/linuxtutorial/

Trust me, it is invaluable to know the basics of how filepaths/operating systems/scripts work.

To answer you're question (assuming you're looking to ONLY read the files in subdirec1 and subdirec2 ):

import os

dirs_to_read = ["path/to/subdirec1", "path/to/subdirec2"] # relative or absolute paths of the subdirectories

for dirpath in dirs_to_read:
    for filepath in os.listdir(dirpath):
        # get full filepath since listdir only gets basenames
        filepath = os.path.join(dirpath, filepath)

        # only continue if the current path is a file (ie not a dir)
        if os.path.isfile(filepath):
            with open() as fi:
                fi.read() # read file and do something with it

This is a lot of indents, but I leave it to you to make a prettier/more efficient solution.