Rodrigo πŸπŸš€ Profile picture
Nov 6, 2021 β€’ 11 tweets β€’ 4 min read β€’ Read on X
The Python 🐍 Standard Library is one of the reasons I love πŸ’™ Python.

πŸ“‚πŸ” 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 πŸš€?
πŸ“‚ 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 πŸ˜‰
πŸ“‚ Getting the parent

The `parent` attribute returns the logical parent of the path you have at hands πŸ‘‡
πŸ“‚ Navigating with `/`

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

But, with paths, you can use it to navigate to other paths πŸ‘‡

(Use `/` regardless of the OS you are on.)
πŸ“‚ Resolving a path

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

This resolves any symlinks, and is the only way to β€œget rid of” the `..` in paths πŸ‘‡
πŸ“‚ 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`:
πŸ“‚ 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 πŸ‘‡ should help you figure out what I have on my `C:/tmp` folder.
πŸ“‚ Check for valid directories

This is similar to `.exists`, but only returns `True` for directories that exist.
πŸ“‚ 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 πŸ‘‡

This is independent from the current working dir! πŸ”₯
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 πŸ‘‡

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

See you around πŸ‘‹

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More from @mathsppblog

May 9
Hide private information in your Python code.

Suppose you want to print an email...

But you want to create that cool ro*****@mathspp.com effect.

This is pretty easy to achieve in Python!

All you need to do is use an f-string and use the appropriate format specifiers. Diagram showing how you can use f-strings and their format specification to redact private or sensitive information, like email addresses.  The code from the diagram:  def redact_email(email):     user, _, domain = email.partition("@")     return f"{user[:2]:*<{len(user)}}@{domain}"  print(redact_email("rodrigo@mathspp.com")) # ro*****@mathspp.com
πŸ‘‰ the first thing you do is use `str.partition` to grab the email β€œuser” and the domain.

We will redact only the user (but you could also redact the domain with the same process).

The `user[:2]` shows the first two characters.

That's the β€œro”.

But how do you get β€œro*****”?
πŸ‘‰ use an f-string and the width specifier.

You want to create a field as wide as β€œrodrigo”:

r o _ _ _ _ _

The length of this field is `len(user)`, so you use `{len(user)}` INSIDE the format spec.

This creates a field with the correct width.
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May 18, 2023
I know `print` is the first Python 🐍 function you learned! πŸš€

And yet, you don't know this about `print` πŸ‘‡ Image
What you know for sure is that `print` will take an object and it will print it on the screen.

That's the basic functionality it provides: Image
Maybe you don't know that `print` can actually print multiple things!

If you pass multiple arguments, they all get printed: Image
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May 17, 2023
I'll tell you the story of a person that had the wrong name…

And how to prevent that in Python 🐍 with properties πŸš€.

πŸ‘‡ Image
John Doe was a regular guy and when he was born, he was inserted into the government's database of people.

They created a new `Person` and added John's details: Image
John never liked his name Doe, though.

So Joe decided to change his name to Smith.

And so he did.

He updated his last name, but the government `Person` STILL had the wrong name! Image
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May 14, 2023
Opening a file to read/write is a common task in Python 🐍.

Here is how to do it right! πŸš€

πŸ‘‡ Image
Python has a built-in `open` that takes a file path and opens that file.

Then, you have to specify whether you want to open the file to read, write, or append.

But this isn't half of the story! Image
The default behaviour is to open the file to read/write text.

This works well with TXT or CSV files, for instance.

If you need to open a file to read its binary contents, you can add a `"b"` to the mode: Image
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May 13, 2023
The Python 🐍 built-in `round` is great. πŸš€

Here are some tips on it. πŸ‘‡ Image
The purpose of `round` is to… round numbers!

It rounds numbers to the closest integer.

These are some simple examples: Image
However, if the number ends in `.5`, what is the closest integer?

In that case, `round` will choose the even number.

This means it may round up or down πŸ€ͺ

(In school, I was taught to round `.5` up… 🀷) Image
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May 12, 2023
Error handling in Python 🐍 made simple. πŸš€

πŸ‘‡ Image
The keyword `try` is used before code that might fail.

So, if you know something can raise an error, you can write it inside a `try` statement: Image
Now that the code is inside a `try` statement, you need to tell Python what error you want to handle, and how.

That's when the keyword `except` comes in! Image
Read 7 tweets

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