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pythonlinuxrmdir
sara
sara

Reputation: 1757

How to check existence of a folder with python and then remove it?

I want to remove dataset folder from dataset3 folder. But the following code is not removing dataset. First I want to check if dataset already exist in dataset then remove dataset.
Can some one please point out my mistake in following code?

for files in os.listdir("dataset3"):
    if os.path.exists("dataset"):
        os.system("rm -rf "+"dataset")

Upvotes: 85

Views: 136914

Answers (6)

mb7744
mb7744

Reputation: 424

I think a superior approach, compatible with at least Python 3.5+, is:

with contextlib.suppress(FileNotFoundError):
    shutil.rmtree(path)

(You must import contextlib along with shutil, both standard modules.)

This solution has the advantages of both the most popular answers:

  • Like shutil.rmtree(path, ignore_errors=True), there is no separate check for file existence and therefore no race condition
  • Like os.path.exists(path) + shutil.rmtree(path), it will throw an error if the folder was not successfully deleted.

Upvotes: 0

martineau
martineau

Reputation: 123413

Python's os.rmdir() only works on empty the directories, however shutil.rmtree() doesn't care (even if there are subdirectories) which makes it very similar to the Linux rm -rf command.

import os
import shutil

dirpath = os.path.join('dataset3', 'dataset')
if os.path.exists(dirpath) and os.path.isdir(dirpath):
    shutil.rmtree(dirpath)

Modern approach

In Python 3.4+ you can do same thing using the pathlib module to make the code more object-oriented and readable:

from pathlib import Path
import shutil

dirpath = Path('dataset3') / 'dataset'
if dirpath.exists() and dirpath.is_dir():
    shutil.rmtree(dirpath)

Upvotes: 140

Vedant Agarwala
Vedant Agarwala

Reputation: 18819

Better to set ignore_errors:

import shutil

shutil.rmtree('/folder_name', ignore_errors=True)

This is much more readable, and concise.

Note that it will ignore all errors, not just dir missing errors.

Upvotes: 29

lch
lch

Reputation: 2188

This will do it:

for files in os.listdir('dataset3'):
     if files == 'dataset':
         os.rmdir(os.path.join(os.getcwd() + 'dataset3', files))

Upvotes: 0

dede
dede

Reputation: 726

try this:

for files in os.listdir("dataset3"):
  if files=="dataset":
    fn=os.path.join("dataset3", files)
    os.system("rm -rf "+fn)
    break

You do not need the os.path.exists() because os.listdir() already told you, that it exists.

And if your foldernames are static, you can do it with:

if os.path.exists("dataset3/dataset"):
  os.system("rm -rf dataset3/dataset")

or as:

try:
  os.system("rm -rf dataset3/dataset")
except:
  pass

Upvotes: 1

Huang Yen Hao
Huang Yen Hao

Reputation: 464

os.remove() is to remove a file.

os.rmdir() is to remove an empty directory.

shutil.rmtree() is to delete a directory and all its contents.

import os

folder = "dataset3/"

# Method 1
for files in os.listdir(folder):
    if files == "dataset":
        os.remove(folder + "dataset")

# Method 2
if os.path.exists(folder + "dataset"):
    os.remove(folder + "dataset")

Upvotes: 27

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