Finding directory based on wildcard?

[jkimrey]

Hi.

I'm trying to create a function that will return a (windows) directory based on a wildcard.

For instance, my starting directory is C:\users\auser, and I would like to search through all (sub) directories under this directory and return any directory names that contain '*gain*' in the directory name.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[mlieqo]

maybe something like this:

import os


def search_dir(starting_directory, string_to_search):
    directory_list = []
    for directory in [x[0] for x in os.walk(starting_directory)]:
        if string_to_search in os.path.basename(os.path.normpath(directory)):
            directory_list.append(directory)
    return directory_list

starting directory for you can be 'C:\users\auser' and string to search f.e. '*gain*'

[jkimrey]

maybe something like this:

import os


def search_dir(starting_directory, string_to_search):
    directory_list = []
    for directory in [x[0] for x in os.walk(starting_directory)]:
        if string_to_search in os.path.basename(os.path.normpath(directory)):
            directory_list.append(directory)
    return directory_list

starting directory for you can be 'C:\users\auser' and string to search f.e. '*gain*'

That's excellent - thank you for the help!

Now I want to make sure I handle exceptions correctly. IE - there should always only be one directory returned. What would be the "correct" way to return an error if the len(directory_list) <> 1?

Thanks again.

[Gribouillis]

Have you considered using glob.glob()?

[mlieqo]

Now I want to make sure I handle exceptions correctly. IE - there should always only be one directory returned. What would be the "correct" way to return an error if the len(directory_list) <> 1?

Well you can add another if statement and raise error if your len(directory_list) is not equal to 1, or simply just add assert statement before return - not sure exactly what is the 'correct' way. And also maybe think about doing it outside of the function, maybe you will want to have the list longer in some cases.