path (aka path pie, formerly path.py) implements path objects as first-class entities, allowing common operations on files to be invoked on those path objects directly. For example:

from path import Path

d = Path("/home/guido/bin")
for f in d.files("*.py"):
    f.chmod(0o755)

# Globbing
for f in d.files("*.py"):
    f.chmod("u+rwx")

# Changing the working directory:
with Path("somewhere"):
    # cwd in now `somewhere`
    ...

# Concatenate paths with /
foo_txt = Path("bar") / "foo.txt"

Path pie is hosted at Github.

Find the documentation here.

Guides and Testimonials

Yasoob wrote the Python 101 Writing a Cleanup Script based on path.

Advantages

Python 3.4 introduced pathlib, which shares many characteristics with path. In particular, it provides an object encapsulation for representing filesystem paths. One may have imagined pathlib would supersede path.

But the implementation and the usage quickly diverge, and path has several advantages over pathlib:

• path implements Path objects as a subclass of str, and as a result these Path objects may be passed directly to other APIs that expect simple text representations of paths, whereas with pathlib, one must first cast values to strings before passing them to APIs unaware of pathlib. This shortcoming was addressed by PEP 519, in Python 3.6.
• path goes beyond exposing basic functionality of a path and exposes commonly-used behaviors on a path, providing methods like rmtree (from shlib) and remove_p (remove a file if it exists).
• As a PyPI-hosted package, path is free to iterate faster than a stdlib package. Contributions are welcome and encouraged.
• path provides a uniform abstraction over its Path object, freeing the implementer to subclass it readily. One cannot subclass a pathlib.Path to add functionality, but must subclass Path, PosixPath, and WindowsPath, even if one only wishes to add a __dict__ to the subclass instances. path instead allows the Path.module object to be overridden by subclasses, defaulting to the os.path. Even advanced uses of path.Path that subclass the model do not need to be concerned with OS-specific nuances.

Alternatives

In addition to pathlib, the pylib project implements a LocalPath class, which shares some behaviors and interfaces with path.

Development

To install a development version, use the Github links to clone or download a snapshot of the latest code. Alternatively, if you have git installed, you may be able to use pip to install directly from the repository:

pip install git+https://github.com/jaraco/path.git

Testing

Tests are invoked with tox. After having installed tox, simply invoke tox in a checkout of the repo to invoke the tests.

Tests are also run in continuous integration. See the badges above for links to the CI runs.

Releasing

Tagged releases are automatically published to PyPI by Azure Pipelines, assuming the tests pass.

Origins

The path.py project was initially released in 2003 by Jason Orendorff and has been continuously developed and supported by several maintainers over the years.

For Enterprise

Available as part of the Tidelift Subscription.

This project and the maintainers of thousands of other packages are working with Tidelift to deliver one enterprise subscription that covers all of the open source you use.

Learn more.

Security Contact

To report a security vulnerability, please use the Tidelift security contact. Tidelift will coordinate the fix and disclosure.