The stat module defines constants and functions for interpreting the results of os.stat(), os.fstat() and os.lstat() (if they exist). For complete details about the stat, fstat and lstat calls, consult the documentation for your system.
The stat module defines the following functions to test for specific file types:
Two additional functions are defined for more general manipulation of the file’s mode:
Normally, you would use the os.path.is*() functions for testing the type of a file; the functions here are useful when you are doing multiple tests of the same file and wish to avoid the overhead of the stat system call for each test. These are also useful when checking for information about a file that isn’t handled by os.path, like the tests for block and character devices.
All the variables below are simply symbolic indexes into the 10-tuple returned by os.stat(), os.fstat() or os.lstat().
The interpretation of “file size” changes according to the file type. For plain files this is the size of the file in bytes. For FIFOs and sockets under most flavors of Unix (including Linux in particular), the “size” is the number of bytes waiting to be read at the time of the call to os.stat(), os.fstat(), or os.lstat(); this can sometimes be useful, especially for polling one of these special files after a non-blocking open. The meaning of the size field for other character and block devices varies more, depending on the implementation of the underlying system call.
Example:
import os, sys
from stat import *
def walktree(top, callback):
'''recursively descend the directory tree rooted at top,
calling the callback function for each regular file'''
for f in os.listdir(top):
pathname = os.path.join(top, f)
mode = os.stat(pathname)[ST_MODE]
if S_ISDIR(mode):
# It's a directory, recurse into it
walktree(pathname, callback)
elif S_ISREG(mode):
# It's a file, call the callback function
callback(pathname)
else:
# Unknown file type, print a message
print 'Skipping %s' % pathname
def visitfile(file):
print 'visiting', file
if __name__ == '__main__':
walktree(sys.argv[1], visitfile)