Using Python, how do I get an array of file info objects, based on a search of a file system?

Question

Currently I have a bash script which runs the find command, like so:

find /storage/disk-1/Media/Video/TV -name *.avi -mtime -7

This gets a list of TV shows that were added to my system in the last 7 days. I then go on to create some symbolic links so I can get to my newest TV shows.

I'm looking to re-code this in Python, but I have a few questions I can seem to find the answers for using Google (maybe I'm not searching for the right thing). I think the best way to sum this up is to ask the question:

How do I perform a search on my file system (should I call find?) which gives me an array of file info objects (containing the modify date, file name, etc) so that I may sort them based on date, and other such things?

Answer 1

import os, time

allfiles = []
now = time.time()

# walk will return triples (current dir, list of subdirs, list of regular files)
# file names are relative to dir at first
for dir, subdirs, files in os.walk("/storage/disk-1/Media/Video/TV"):
    for f in files:
        if not f.endswith(".avi"):
            continue
        # compute full path name
        f = os.path.join(dir, f)
        st = os.stat(f)
        if st.st_mtime < now - 3600*24*7:
            # too old
            continue
        allfiles.append((f, st))

This will return all files that find also returned, as a list of pairs (filename, stat result).

Answer 2

look into module os: os.walk is the function which walks the file system, os.path is the module which gives the file mtime and other file informations. also os.path defines a lot of functions for parsing and splitting filenames.

also of interest, module glob defines a functions for "globbing" strings (matching a string using unix wildcards rules)

from this, building a list of file matching some criterion should be easy.

Answer 3

• You can use "find" through the "subprocess" module.
• Afterwards, use the "split" string function to dissect each line
• For each file, use the OS module (e.g. getmtime etc.) to get file information

or

• Use the "walk" and "glob" modules to get the file paths in objects