Question

I’m attempting to walk through a directory using os.walk(). My current implementation is as follows:

print(".:")
for dirname, dirnames, filenames in os.walk(path):
    for filename in filenames:
        print(os.path.join(dirname, filename))
    print()
    for subdirname in dirnames:
        print(os.path.join(dirname, subdirname) + ":")

For the “Path” I get the following output:

.:
./File5.py
./File 3.py
./File 1.py

./directory 2:
./directory 4:
./Test Directory:
./directory 2/player_career.csv
./directory 2/File2.py

./directory 4/test.txt
./directory 4/Homework4.py

./directory 4/__pycache__:
./directory 4/__pycache__/File4.cpython-32.pyc


./Test Directory/Test 3:
./Test Directory/Test 2:
./Test Directory/Test 3/ttt

./Test Directory/Test 2/Untitled Document 2
./Test Directory/Test 2/Untitled Document

./Test Directory/Test 2/Untitled Folder:
./Test Directory/Test 2/Untitled Folder/jjj

and the output I’m looking for is:

.:
./File5.py
./File 3.py
./File 1.py

./directory 2:

./directory 2/player_career.csv
./directory 2/File2.py

./directory 4:

./directory 4/test.txt
./directory 4/Homework4.py

./directory 4/__pycache__:

./directory 4/__pycache__/File4.cpython-32.pyc

./Test Directory:

./Test Directory/Test 2:

./Test Directory/Test 2/Untitled Document 
./Test Directory/Test 2/Untitled Document 2

./Test Directory/Test 2/Untitled Folder:

./Test Directory/Test 2/Untitled Folder/jjj

./Test Directory/Test 3:

./Test Directory/Test 3/ttt

If I was doing this recursively I would have the ability to simply call my function for each subdirectory I find, however I’m having trouble figuring out an elegant way of doing that using os.walk().

My Question: How can I obtain the preceding output using os.walk()

Answer 1

Don’t print out subdirectories immediately but instead print them out when you’re actually at the directory.

An example:

for dirname, dirnames, filenames in os.walk(path):
    print()
    print(dirname + ":")
    for filename in filenames:
        print(os.path.join(dirname, filename))

The way os.walk works, trying to print all of the directory names immediately at the time you get them in dirnames won’t give you the ordering you want.