CaptainDriftwood
CaptainDriftwood

Reputation: 5708

Python pathlib make directories if they don’t exist

If I wanted to specify a path to save files to and make directories that don’t exist in that path, is it possible to do this using the pathlib library in one line of code?

Upvotes: 227

Views: 146332

Answers (4)

Immot
Immot

Reputation: 441

If your path includes a filename, e.g.

file_path = "/existing_dir/not_existing_dir/another_dir/a_file_name"

Then use file_path.parents[0] or file_path.parent:

from pathlib import Path

file_path = "/existing_dir/not_existing_dir/another_dir/a_file_name"
pathlib.Path(filepath).parent.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)

Otherwise, you might encounter PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied later on.

Upvotes: 23

ggindinson
ggindinson

Reputation: 31

Universal function to create dirs/files that do not exist

def check_and_create_path(self, path: Path):
        path_way = path.parent if path.is_file() else path

        path_way.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)

        if not path.exists():
            path.touch()

Upvotes: -1

Kolibril
Kolibril

Reputation: 1423

This gives additional control for the case that the path is already there:

path = Path.cwd() / 'new' / 'hi' / 'there'
try:
    path.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=False)
except FileExistsError:
    print("Folder is already there")
else:
    print("Folder was created")

Upvotes: 14

wim
wim

Reputation: 362716

Yes, that is Path.mkdir:

pathlib.Path('/tmp/sub1/sub2').mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)

From the docs:

If parents is true, any missing parents of this path are created as needed; they are created with the default permissions without taking mode into account (mimicking the POSIX mkdir -p command).

If parents is false (the default), a missing parent raises FileNotFoundError.

If exist_ok is false (the default), FileExistsError is raised if the target directory already exists.

If exist_ok is true, FileExistsError exceptions will be ignored (same behavior as the POSIX mkdir -p command), but only if the last path component is not an existing non-directory file.

Upvotes: 381

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