4.16 Splitting a Path into All of Its Parts

Credit: Trent Mick

4.16.1 Problem

You want to process subparts of a file or directory path.

4.16.2 Solution

We can define a function that uses os.path.split to break out all of the parts of a file or directory path:

import os, sys def splitall(path):     allparts = []     while 1:         parts = os.path.split(path)         if parts[0] == path:  # sentinel for absolute paths             allparts.insert(0, parts[0])             break         elif parts[1] == path: # sentinel for relative paths             allparts.insert(0, parts[1])             break         else:             path = parts[0]             allparts.insert(0, parts[1])     return allparts

4.16.3 Discussion

The os.path.split function splits a path into two parts: everything before the final slash and everything after it. For example:

>>> os.path.split('c:\\foo\\bar\\baz.txt') ('c:\\foo\\bar', 'baz.txt')

Often, it's useful to process parts of a path more generically; for example, if you want to walk up a directory. This recipe splits a path into each piece that corresponds to a mount point, directory name, or file. A few test cases make it clear:

>>> splitall('a/b/c') ['a', 'b', 'c'] >>> splitall('/a/b/c/') ['/', 'a', 'b', 'c', ''] >>> splitall('/') ['/'] >>> splitall('C:') ['C:'] >>> splitall('C:\\') ['C:\\'] >>> splitall('C:\\a') ['C:\\', 'a'] >>> splitall('C:\\a\\') ['C:\\', 'a', ''] >>> splitall('C:\\a\\b') ['C:\\', 'a', 'b'] >>> splitall('a\\b') ['a', 'b']

4.16.4 See Also

Recipe 4.17; documentation on the os.path module in the Library Reference.