Merging specific files of a directory in python

Question

I have a directory C:/newdir/ It contains the following files with filenames :

s1_student1_file
t1_teacher2_file
hab_parent5_file
y1_professor_file 
bsa_assistant2_file
t1_student_file
nas_officer_file
ee1_newguy15_file
ee1_professor15_file
f1_student8_file

I want to merge the content of s1_student1_file, t1_teacher2_file, t1_student_file, y1_professor_file, ee1_newguy15_file, f1_student8_file, and ee1_professor15_file into a new file called all_file and deleting the files that have been merged from the directory I have to write a python code for this but cannot figure how.

are they text files?

Red
– Red

2020-06-11 18:15:50 +00:00
Commented Jun 11, 2020 at 18:15 — Red
– Red, Commented Jun 11, 2020 at 18:15
yes they are text files

mhn
– mhn

2020-06-11 18:16:25 +00:00
Commented Jun 11, 2020 at 18:16 — mhn
– mhn, Commented Jun 11, 2020 at 18:16

Red · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-12 12:43:20Z

1

You can use glob to list all the chosen text files in a chosen folder. Then, you can use a for-loop to loop over all the text file and write the content into another file:

from glob import glob

with open('all_file.txt','a') as f:
    for file in glob('s1*')+glob('t1*')+glob('y1*')+glob('ee1*'):
        with open(file+'txt','r') as r:
            f.write(r.read())

To remove the files afterwards:

from glob import glob
import os
with open('all_file.txt','a') as f:
    for file in glob('s1*')+glob('t1*')+glob('y1*')+glob('ee1*'):
        with open(file,'r') as r:
            f.write(r.read())
        os.remove(file)

edited Jun 12, 2020 at 12:43

answered Jun 11, 2020 at 18:18

Red

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10 Comments

mhn Over a year ago

sorry just one more thing, where in the code should I pass my directory as the argument?

Red Over a year ago

You can change glob('s1*')+glob('t1*')+glob('y1*')+glob('ee1*') to ["C:/newdir/"+file for file in glob('s1*')+glob('t1*')+glob('y1*')+glob('ee1*')].

mhn Over a year ago

hi so how would I remove all the files that have been merged from the directory after merging them in the same code

Red Over a year ago

Simply add os.remove(file+'.txt') right under the context manager..

mhn Over a year ago

hi the code is running and doesnt show any error but the files arent getting deleted

|

Deepak Chaudhary · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-12 07:56:40Z

0

Import shutil & pathlib libraries

You can install the libraries using this command –

pip install shutil

pip install pathlib

Python Implementation

import shutil 
from pathlib import Path 

firstfile = Path(r'C:\Users\Sohom\Desktop\A.txt') 
secondfile = Path(r'C:\Users\Sohom\Desktop\B.txt') 

newfile = input("Enter the name of the new file: ") 
print() 
print("The merged content of the 2 files will be in", newfile) 

with open(newfile, "wb") as wfd: 

for f in [firstfile, secondfile]: 
    with open(f, "rb") as fd: 
        shutil.copyfileobj(fd, wfd, 1024 * 1024 * 10) 

  print("\nThe content is merged successfully.!") 
 print("Do you want to view it ? (y / n): ") 

 check = input() 
 if check == 'n': 
exit() 
else: 
print() 
c = open(newfile, "r") 
print(c.read()) 
c.close()

......

Create Array of text files dynamically

answered Jun 12, 2020 at 7:56

Deepak Chaudhary

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2 Comments

mhn Over a year ago

Ann Zen's code does the job but I am having difficulty deleting the files that have to be merged from the directory after theyve been merged. Could you help me with that

Deepak Chaudhary Over a year ago

import os //Call this in loop using file array file_path = '/tmp/file.txt' os.remove(file_path)

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