Question

I am new to python, just wondering what’s the best way for python to do the following:

file='/var/log/test.txt'
==action==

after ==action==, I want to get the path and the file separated like:

path='/var/log'
file_name='test.txt'

I am not asking how to do this, I am asking the most efficient way to do this using least lines of code.

=EDIT=

What if my file=’test.txt’ instead of file=’/var/log/test.txt’. I would more likely expect:

path='.'
path='test.txt'

other than

path=''
file_name='test.txt'

what’s the tip for this then?

Answer 1

file = '/var/log/test.txt'
path, file_name = os.path.split(file)

yields:

path
'/var/log'

file_name
'test.txt'

To use os.path.split() requires import os. I’d have to think that the Python library is as efficient as it could be.

To respond to the update/edit, if no path is specified and you want the . for path, add:

if not path: path = '.'

I.e.,

file = 'test.txt'
path, file_name = os.path.split(file)
if not path: path = '.'

gives:

path
'.'

file_name
'test.txt'