CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonlistfilelast-modifiedfile-not-found
Heikki
Heikki

Reputation: 2254

Get a list of fast changing files which are newer than a timestamp

I would like to get a list of fast changing files which are newer than a timestamp.

The files I would especially like to follow are temporary files which are renamed after they have been completely downloaded.

In my first trial, I made the problem separable, i.e., first (1) listed the files and then (2) tried to look their modification times:

import os.path
import glob
import datetime

def get_newer_files(ref_time = '2020-05-02 16:27:00.000000'):
  path = os.path.expanduser("~") + '\\Downloads\\'

  files = [f for f in glob.glob(path + "*.*")]

  selected_files = []
  for f in files:
    dt = os.path.getmtime(f)
    dt_string = str(datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(dt))
    if (dt_string > ref_time):
      selected_files += [f]

  return selected_files

However, the separable approach yields sometimes FileNotFoundError, because a temporary file may have disappeared after it has first been listed.

Is there a neat way to consistently list files which are newer than a certain timestamp, without a possibility to end up into such errors?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 364

Answers (1)

Gabio
Gabio

Reputation: 9494

Try to use scandir() which returns an iterator of all the objects in a directory including file attribute information:

from os import scandir
from datetime import datetime

dir_entries = scandir('.')
for entry in dir_entries:
    if entry.is_file():
        file_name = entry.name
        last_modified = datetime.utcfromtimestamp(entry.stat().st_mtime)
        print(file_name, last_modified)
        # you can filter here unwanted files older than X

Upvotes: 1

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