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windowsfilepython-2.7wildcard
Chris Nguyen
Chris Nguyen

Reputation: 160

Moving files with Wildcards in Python

So I am trying to move say all files starting with "A" to a certain directory. Now I now Windows command prompt does not support this method:

move A* A_Dir

But could this combined with Python find a way? Or am I gonna have to go through each individual file? Such as:

contents=os.listdir('.')
for file in content:
    if file[0] == 'A':
        os.system("move %s A_Dir" % file)

... etc. Is there any other solution that is more simpler and quicker? -Thanks!

Upvotes: 2

Views: 11299

Answers (1)

Vinkal
Vinkal

Reputation: 2984

On Windows: This example moves files starting with "A" from "C:\11" to "C:\2"

Option #1: if you are using batch file, create batch file (movefiles.bat) as show below:

movefiles.bat:

move /-y "C:\11\A*.txt" "C:\2\"

Execute this batch file from python script as shown below:

import os
batchfile = "C:\\1\\movefiles.bat"
os.system( "%s" % batchfile)

move command

Option #2: using glob & shutil

import glob
import shutil
for data in glob.glob("C:\\11\\A*.txt"):
    shutil.move(data,"C:\\2\\")

If we want to move all files and directory starting with A:

import glob
import shutil

for data in glob.glob("C:\\11\\A*"):
        shutil.move(data,"C:\\2\\")

Based on @eryksun comment, I have added if not os.path.isdir(data):, if only files starting with A are required to be moved and in this case, directory will be ignored.

import glob
import shutil
import os
for data in glob.glob("C:\\11\\A*"):
    if not os.path.isdir(data):
        shutil.move(data,"C:\\2\\")

Upvotes: 4

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