Python recursive folder read

Make sure you understand the three return values of os.walk:

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

has the following meaning:

• root: Current path which is "walked through"
• subdirs: Files in root of type directory
• files: Files in root (not in subdirs) of type other than directory

And please use os.path.join instead of concatenating with a slash! Your problem is filePath = rootdir + '/' + file - you must concatenate the currently "walked" folder instead of the topmost folder. So that must be filePath = os.path.join(root, file). BTW "file" is a builtin, so you don't normally use it as variable name.

Another problem are your loops, which should be like this, for example:

import osimport syswalk_dir = sys.argv[1]print('walk_dir = ' + walk_dir)# If your current working directory may change during script execution, it's recommended to# immediately convert program arguments to an absolute path. Then the variable root below will# be an absolute path as well. Example:# walk_dir = os.path.abspath(walk_dir)print('walk_dir (absolute) = ' + os.path.abspath(walk_dir))for root, subdirs, files in os.walk(walk_dir):    print('--\nroot = ' + root)    list_file_path = os.path.join(root, 'my-directory-list.txt')    print('list_file_path = ' + list_file_path)    with open(list_file_path, 'wb') as list_file:        for subdir in subdirs:            print('\t- subdirectory ' + subdir)        for filename in files:            file_path = os.path.join(root, filename)            print('\t- file %s (full path: %s)' % (filename, file_path))            with open(file_path, 'rb') as f:                f_content = f.read()                list_file.write(('The file %s contains:\n' % filename).encode('utf-8'))                list_file.write(f_content)                list_file.write(b'\n')

If you didn't know, the with statement for files is a shorthand:

with open('filename', 'rb') as f:    dosomething()# is effectively the same asf = open('filename', 'rb')try:    dosomething()finally:    f.close()

If you are using Python 3.5 or above, you can get this done in 1 line.

import glob# root_dir needs a trailing slash (i.e. /root/dir/)for filename in glob.iglob(root_dir + '**/*.txt', recursive=True):     print(filename)

As mentioned in the documentation

If recursive is true, the pattern '**' will match any files and zero or more directories and subdirectories.

If you want every file, you can use

import globfor filename in glob.iglob(root_dir + '**/**', recursive=True):     print(filename)

Agree with Dave Webb, os.walk will yield an item for each directory in the tree. Fact is, you just don't have to care about subFolders.

Code like this should work:

import osimport sysrootdir = sys.argv[1]for folder, subs, files in os.walk(rootdir):    with open(os.path.join(folder, 'python-outfile.txt'), 'w') as dest:        for filename in files:            with open(os.path.join(folder, filename), 'r') as src:                dest.write(src.read())