pathlib — Object-oriented filesystem paths

Added in version 3.4.

Source code: Lib/pathlib/

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This module offers classes representing filesystem paths with semantics appropriate for different operating systems. Path classes are divided between pure paths, which provide purely computational operations without I/O, and concrete paths, which inherit from pure paths but also provide I/O operations.

If you’ve never used this module before or just aren’t sure which class is right for your task, Path is most likely what you need. It instantiates a concrete path for the platform the code is running on.

Pure paths are useful in some special cases; for example:

1. If you want to manipulate Windows paths on a Unix machine (or vice versa). You cannot instantiate a WindowsPath when running on Unix, but you can instantiate PureWindowsPath.

2. You want to make sure that your code only manipulates paths without actually accessing the OS. In this case, instantiating one of the pure classes may be useful since those simply don’t have any OS-accessing operations.

See also

PEP 428: The pathlib module – object-oriented filesystem paths.

See also

For low-level path manipulation on strings, you can also use the os.path module.

Basic use

Importing the main class:

>>> from pathlib import Path

Listing subdirectories:

>>> p = Path('.')
>>> [x for x in p.iterdir() if x.is_dir()]
[PosixPath('.hg'), PosixPath('docs'), PosixPath('dist'),
 PosixPath('__pycache__'), PosixPath('build')]

Listing Python source files in this directory tree:

>>> list(p.glob('**/*.py'))
[PosixPath('test_pathlib.py'), PosixPath('setup.py'),
 PosixPath('pathlib.py'), PosixPath('docs/conf.py'),
 PosixPath('build/lib/pathlib.py')]

Navigating inside a directory tree:

>>> p = Path('/etc')
>>> q = p / 'init.d' / 'reboot'
>>> q
PosixPath('/etc/init.d/reboot')
>>> q.resolve()
PosixPath('/etc/rc.d/init.d/halt')

Querying path properties:

>>> q.exists()
True
>>> q.is_dir()
False

Opening a file:

>>> with q.open() as f: f.readline()
...
'#!/bin/bash\n'

Exceptions

exception pathlib.UnsupportedOperation

An exception inheriting NotImplementedError that is raised when an unsupported operation is called on a path object.

Added in version 3.13.

Pure paths

Pure path objects provide path-handling operations which don’t actually access a filesystem. There are three ways to access these classes, which we also call flavours:

class pathlib.PurePath(*pathsegments)

A generic class that represents the system’s path flavour (instantiating it creates either a PurePosixPath or a PureWindowsPath):

>>> PurePath('setup.py')      # Running on a Unix machine
PurePosixPath('setup.py')

Each element of pathsegments can be either a string representing a path segment, or an object implementing the os.PathLike interface where the __fspath__() method returns a string, such as another path object:

>>> PurePath('foo', 'some/path', 'bar')
PurePosixPath('foo/some/path/bar')
>>> PurePath(Path('foo'), Path('bar'))
PurePosixPath('foo/bar')

When pathsegments is empty, the current directory is assumed:

>>> PurePath()
PurePosixPath('.')

If a segment is an absolute path, all previous segments are ignored (like os.path.join()):

>>> PurePath('/etc', '/usr', 'lib64')
PurePosixPath('/usr/lib64')
>>> PureWindowsPath('c:/Windows', 'd:bar')
PureWindowsPath('d:bar')

On Windows, the drive is not reset when a rooted relative path segment (e.g., r'\foo') is encountered:

>>> PureWindowsPath('c:/Windows', '/Program Files')
PureWindowsPath('c:/Program Files')

Spurious slashes and single dots are collapsed, but double dots ('..') and leading double slashes ('//') are not, since this would change the meaning of a path for various reasons (e.g. symbolic links, UNC paths):

>>> PurePath('foo//bar')
PurePosixPath('foo/bar')
>>> PurePath('//foo/bar')
PurePosixPath('//foo/bar')
>>> PurePath('foo/./bar')
PurePosixPath('foo/bar')
>>> PurePath('foo/../bar')
PurePosixPath('foo/../bar')

(a naïve approach would make PurePosixPath('foo/../bar') equivalent to PurePosixPath('bar'), which is wrong if foo is a symbolic link to another directory)

Pure path objects implement the os.PathLike interface, allowing them to be used anywhere the interface is accepted.

Changed in version 3.6: Added support for the os.PathLike interface.

class pathlib.PurePosixPath(*pathsegments)

A subclass of PurePath, this path flavour represents non-Windows filesystem paths:

>>> PurePosixPath('/etc/hosts')
PurePosixPath('/etc/hosts')

pathsegments is specified similarly to PurePath.

class pathlib.PureWindowsPath(*pathsegments)

A subclass of PurePath, this path flavour represents Windows filesystem paths, including UNC paths:

>>> PureWindowsPath('c:/', 'Users', 'Ximénez')
PureWindowsPath('c:/Users/Ximénez')
>>> PureWindowsPath('//server/share/file')
PureWindowsPath('//server/share/file')

pathsegments is specified similarly to PurePath.

Regardless of the system you’re running on, you can instantiate all of these classes, since they don’t provide any operation that does system calls.

General properties

Paths are immutable and hashable. Paths of a same flavour are comparable and orderable. These properties respect the flavour’s case-folding semantics:

>>> PurePosixPath('foo') == PurePosixPath('FOO')
False
>>> PureWindowsPath('foo') == PureWindowsPath('FOO')
True
>>> PureWindowsPath('FOO') in { PureWindowsPath('foo') }
True
>>> PureWindowsPath('C:') < PureWindowsPath('d:')
True

Paths of a different flavour compare unequal and cannot be ordered:

>>> PureWindowsPath('foo') == PurePosixPath('foo')
False
>>> PureWindowsPath('foo')