os.listdir(path) and non-string as input

os.listdir(path) and non-string as input - Printable Version

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os.listdir(path) and non-string as input - metalray - Aug-14-2018

Dear Python Experts,

I am trying to interate through folders in my root directory.
With the start of the first interation (folder) a new folder should be created
named existingname+'_flip'.
I then want to look through the files of the original folder and copy them over to the new folder.
The copy code is not realized yet, for now I want to get the loop right but I struggle.

While I loop through "dirs" the following error comes:

for file_path in os.listdir(path):
TypeError: listdir: path should be string, bytes, os.PathLike or None, not tuple

It seems, I got the input type to the function wrong. How can I convert "path" to string and is
that really the right way?

def main():   
    #interate through tub folders
    rootdir = 'C:/Users/xxx/Downloads/xxx/tubs_J/thinktank/'

    for dirs in os.walk(rootdir):
    
         #create new folder = existing name + _flip
         outPath = os.path.join(dirs, '_flip')
         if not os.path.exists(outPath):
             os.makedirs(outPath)

         path = dirs
    
         #iterate through the names of contents of the folder
         for file_path in os.listdir(path):
        
             print(file_path)
             
             #write file then save    
             newpathwouldbe = os.path.join(outPath, file_path)
       
if __name__ == '__main__':
     main()

RE: os.listdir(path) and non-string as input - Gribouillis - Aug-14-2018

According to the documentation, os.walk generates 3-tuples (dirpath, dirnames, filenames), so you need to write

for root, dirs, files in os.walk(rootdir):
    ...

root is a directory, dirs is a list of names of subdirectories and files is a list of names of subfiles. With your present code, dirs is a 3-tuple.

RE: os.listdir(path) and non-string as input - metalray - Aug-14-2018

Hi Gribouillis,

Thank you so much for your input!

I see, thanks for the hint.
I thought I can just leave the other two out if I only want the "dir". OK.
Now I am here:

TypeError: listdir: path should be string, bytes, os.PathLike or None, not list

Similar error.

dirs is not a string. How can I convert it to a string?

I tried os.listdir(str(path)) but I think I need the absolute path...I think

RE: os.listdir(path) and non-string as input - metalray - Aug-14-2018

Why is outpath not concatenating properly?

#interate through tub folders
rootdir = 'C:/Users/xxx/data_thinktank/'

for root, dirs, files in os.walk(rootdir):
flip = r'_flip'
outpath = os.path.join(str(dirs), flip)
print(outpath)

Output of print statement
['folder_1_xx']\_flip

RE: os.listdir(path) and non-string as input - metalray - Aug-15-2018

OK, got it.

outpath = os.path.join(rootdir, dir+"_flip")

now I a at this: