Question

I’ve been trying to solve this problem all day. I just want to list the files within a directory that a user will specify. Below is my code and traceback:

>>> os.listdir(r'{}'.format(input('directory:')))

directory:C:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
WindowsError: [Error 123] The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax i
s incorrect: 'C:\r\\*.*'

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

Answer 1

You need to give C: in string format.

Its working fine for me

>>> os.listdir(r'{0}'.format(input('directory:')))
directory:"C:\Users"
['All Users', 'Default', 'Default User', 'desktop.ini', 'Public', 'RanRag']
>>>

or try using raw_input.

>>> os.listdir(r'{0}'.format(raw_input('directory:')))
directory:C:\Users
['All Users', 'Default', 'Default User', 'desktop.ini', 'Public', 'RanRag']

The raw_input function reads a line from input, converts it to a string
(stripping a trailing newline), and returns that

If you are using python3 than raw_input is replaced by input.

>>> os.listdir(r'{0}'.format(input('directory:')))
directory:C:\Users
['All Users', 'Default', 'Default User', 'desktop.ini', 'Public', 'RanRag']
>>>