Python 2.7 - Delete all the __init__.py and __init__.pyc files recursively

Question

I'm developing a python command-line tool, and it should delete the __init__.* files in the entire project tree. I tried this:

subprocess.call(['find', './<directory>', -name, '"__init__.*"', '-delete'])

where actually has the path...

Any ideas?

NOTE: This works using the terminal. When it comes to do it in python, however; it will not delete anything (the script continues though, it doesn't throw any errors).

Answer 1

You can try to use the glob module to remove the files under a given subdirectory:

import glob, os
init_files = glob.glob('./directory/__init__.*')
for f in init_files: os.remove(f)

To go through subdirectories recursively you could use the os.walk function:

import os, fnmatch
for root, dirs, files in os.walk('./directory'):
    for f in fnmatch.filter(files, '__init__.*'):
        os.remove(f)

Answer 2

The bash command you want to execute is this:

find ./<directory> -name "__init__.py*" -exec  rm -rf {} \;

Before you jump into it, run the following to print which files will actually be removed:

subprocess.check_output(['find', './<directory>','-name', '__init__.py*', '-exec', 'echo', '{}', ';']).split('\n')

Then, if that looks good, run this:

subprocess.check_output(['find', './<directory>','-name', '__init__.py*', '-exec', 'rm', '{}', ';'])