You see, in the world of programming, there are some things that just don’t seem to make sense at first glance. And long paths in Python is one of them!
So, what exactly are we talking about? Well, let’s say you have a file named “my_super_long_file_name.txt” in your project directory that looks like this:
# This script shows the path to a file named "my_super_long_file_name.txt" in a project directory.
# The path is broken down into different folders, with each folder separated by a forward slash (/).
# The first folder is the project folder, which contains all the files and folders related to the project.
project/
# The second folder is "folder1", which is located inside the project folder.
project/folder1/
# The third folder is "folder2", which is located inside "folder1".
project/folder1/folder2/
# The fourth folder is "folder3", which is located inside "folder2".
project/folder1/folder2/folder3/
# Finally, the file "my_super_long_file_name.txt" is located inside "folder3".
project/folder1/folder2/folder3/my_super_long_file_name.txt
Now, if you want to open this file using Python’s `open()` function, you might think it would be something like this:
# The following script opens a file using Python's `open()` function and performs some operations on it.
# First, we use the `with` statement to open the file in a context manager.
# This ensures that the file is automatically closed after we are done using it.
# We specify the file path as a string within the `open()` function.
# The `as` keyword allows us to assign a variable name to the file object returned by the `open()` function.
with open('project/folder1/folder2/folder3/my_super_long_file_name.txt') as file:
# Now, we can perform operations on the file using the assigned variable name.
# For example, we can use the `read()` method to read the contents of the file.
file_contents = file.read()
# We can also use the `write()` method to write to the file.
file.write("This is a new line added to the file.")
# After we are done using the file, the `with` statement automatically closes it for us.
# This ensures that we do not accidentally leave the file open, which can cause issues.
# We can also use the `close()` method to manually close the file.
file.close()
But wait a minute! This doesn’t work, does it? Nope, because Python has a limit on how long your path can be (usually around 1024 characters). So what are we supposed to do now?!
Well, my friend, there is a solution. And that solution involves using the `os` module in Python! Yes, you heard me right it’s time for some good old-fashioned OS magic! ️
Here’s how we can open our long path file using the `os` module:
# Import the necessary modules
import os.path # Import the os.path module to manipulate file paths
from os import walk # Import the walk function from the os module to traverse directories
# Define a function to get the long file
def get_long_file(folder):
for root, dirs, files in walk(folder): # Use the walk function to traverse the given folder
if 'my_super_long_file_name' in any(f.lower() for f in files): # Check if the file name is present in any of the files in the current directory
return os.path.join(root, 'my_super_long_file_name.txt') # If found, return the full path of the file
# Call the function and pass the folder path as an argument
long_file = get_long_file('my_folder')
# Print the result
print(long_file)
Now you might be wondering what the ***** is this `walk()` function doing here? Well, my friend, it’s a built-in Python function that recursively walks through all subdirectories and returns their paths!
So in our case, we use it to find the path of our long file. And then we join it with its name using `os.path.join()` which is another handy built-in Python function that joins two or more paths together!
Remember to always use the `os` module when dealing with long file paths.