Thread by @mathsppblog

The Python 🐍 Standard Library is one of the reasons I love 💙 Python.

📂🔍 dealing with your filesystem is super simple.

All you have to do is use the `pathlib` module.

This short thread is a mini `pathlib` cookbook 🍳, showing some example usages of `pathlib`.

Ready 🚀?

📂 Creating a `Path` object

`Path` objects are the bread and butter of `pathlib`.

Here, I just create a path with no arguments, which defaults to the path `.`

Notice how I used `Path` but I get a `WindowsPath` back.

`pathlib` automatically detects your OS 😉

📂 Getting the parent

The `parent` attribute returns the logical parent of the path you have at hands 👇

📂 Navigating with `/`

The `/` is the operator for division, right?

But, with paths, you can use it to navigate to other paths 👇

(Use `/` regardless of the OS you are on.)

📂 Resolving a path

Paths have a `.resolve` method that resolves the path.

This resolves any symlinks, and is the only way to “get rid of” the `..` in paths 👇

📂 Going up the filesystem

If you don't want to write a bunch of `.parent` to go up the filesystem, you can also use `/ ".."` and `.resolve`:

📂 Check file/directory existence

With the `.exists` method, you can check if the path points to a resource that exists in the filesystem.

This example 👇 should help you figure out what I have on my `C:/tmp` folder.

📂 Check for valid directories

This is similar to `.exists`, but only returns `True` for directories that exist.

📂 Accessing folder relative to script

Imagine you have this structure:

| - project/
| - data/
| - data1.csv
| - data2.csv
| foo.py

Using `__file__`, you can get to the `data` folder 👇

This is independent from the current working dir! 🔥

That's it for this mini cookbook thread!

If you enjoyed, let me know, and I'll write more about `pathlib` in the near future!

If you want to learn more about Python 🐍, follow @mathsppblog.

You won't be disappointed.

Here are some cool things we learned 👇

📂 Creating a `Path` object
📂 Navigating with `/`
📂 Check file/directory existence
📂 Accessing folder relative to script

See you around 👋