Python loop over files in directory then list

Question

I am trying to loop over files in a directory and list the path of each one. My code iterates over each file but lists the wrong directory. What am I missing to return the full directory?

Here's my code so far:

import os

directory = "posts/"

for file in os.listdir(directory):
    if file.endswith(".md"):
        dir = os.path.abspath(file)
        print "The Path is: " + str(dir)

The structure is like this:

.
├── app.py
└── posts
    ├── first.md
    └── second.md

Output from the terminal (missing the /posts/ part of the directory):

The Path is: /home/tc/user/python-md-reader/second.md
The Path is: /home/tc/user/python-md-reader/first.md

akuiper · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-24 02:44:32Z

3

If you take a look at the source code:

def abspath(path):
    """Return the absolute version of a path."""
    if not isabs(path):
        if isinstance(path, unicode):
            cwd = os.getcwdu()
        else:
            cwd = os.getcwd()
        path = join(cwd, path)
    return normpath(path)         # normpath according to the comment 
                                  # """Normalize path, eliminating double slashes, etc."""

What abspath does is simply join the current working directory with the path you provided, since you only provide the file as a path, and you are one level up of the posts directory it will get ignored.

answered Dec 24, 2016 at 2:44

akuiper

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Comments

John Zwinck · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-24 02:31:42Z

1

You can just put the directory back into the path:

dir = os.path.abspath(os.path.join(directory, file))

answered Dec 24, 2016 at 2:31

John Zwinck

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2 Comments

whatevermike Over a year ago

This solves my immediate problem thanks. I'm unsure why the abspath method returns the root of my app.py file instead of the posts directory though

John Zwinck Over a year ago

@c4binever: I think you thought abspath would "find a file" but actually it just takes the path you give it and "expands" it relative to the current directory. Since your current directory is . and not ./directory, it didn't do what you wanted.

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