How do I check whether a file exists without exceptions?
If the reason you're checking is so you can do something like if file_exists: open_it()
, it's safer to use a try
around the attempt to open it. Checking and then opening risks the file being deleted or moved or something between when you check and when you try to open it.
If you're not planning to open the file immediately, you can use os.path.isfile
Return
True
if path is an existing regular file. This follows symbolic links, so both islink() and isfile() can be true for the same path.
import os.pathos.path.isfile(fname)
if you need to be sure it's a file.
Starting with Python 3.4, the pathlib
module offers an object-oriented approach (backported to pathlib2
in Python 2.7):
from pathlib import Pathmy_file = Path("/path/to/file")if my_file.is_file(): # file exists
To check a directory, do:
if my_file.is_dir(): # directory exists
To check whether a Path
object exists independently of whether is it a file or directory, use exists()
:
if my_file.exists(): # path exists
You can also use resolve(strict=True)
in a try
block:
try: my_abs_path = my_file.resolve(strict=True)except FileNotFoundError: # doesn't existelse: # exists
You have the os.path.exists
function:
import os.pathos.path.exists(file_path)
This returns True
for both files and directories but you can instead use
os.path.isfile(file_path)
to test if it's a file specifically. It follows symlinks.
Unlike isfile()
, exists()
will return True
for directories. So depending on if you want only plain files or also directories, you'll use isfile()
or exists()
. Here is some simple REPL output:
>>> os.path.isfile("/etc/password.txt")True>>> os.path.isfile("/etc")False>>> os.path.isfile("/does/not/exist")False>>> os.path.exists("/etc/password.txt")True>>> os.path.exists("/etc")True>>> os.path.exists("/does/not/exist")False