How to List Files and Directory Tree Structure in Python   

In this post, we'll see how to list files and directory tree structure in Python. We will use Python library and custom code:

(1) seedir - Python library for reading folder tree diagrams

import seedir as sd

path = '/home/user/'

sd.seedir(path=path, style='lines',  exclude_folders='.git')

(2) list files and directory trees

for root, dirs, files in os.walk(start_path):
	level = root.replace(start_path, '').count(os.sep)
	indent = ' ' * 4 * (level)
	print('{}{}/'.format(indent, os.path.basename(root)))

list files/folders with seedir

If you want quick and easy solution you can install library: seedir by:

pip install seeder

Then you can use it simply by few Python lines:

import seedir as sd

path = '/home/user/'

sd.seedir(path=path, style='lines', itemlimit=10, depthlimit=2, exclude_folders='.git')

This will return well structured file tree like:

seedir/
├─.gitattributes
├─.gitignore
├─.ipynb_checkpoints/
│ └─examples-checkpoint.ipynb
├─build/
│ ├─bdist.win-amd64/
│ └─lib/
├─CHANGELOG.md
├─dist/
│ └─seedir-0.1.4-py3-none-any.whl
├─docs/
│ ├─exampledir/
│ ├─gettingstarted.md
│ ├─seedir/
│ └─templates/
├─img/
│ ├─pun.jpg
│ ├─seedir_diagram.png
│ └─seedir_diagram.pptx
├─LICENSE
└─MANIFEST.in

There are many different parameters that we can control like:

• style='dash'
• sort=True
• first='files'
• depthlimit=2
• itemlimit=1
• exclude_folders='.git'

To read more about the API you can visit the official docs: Package seedir.

The method documentation is located here: seedir.realdir.seedir

Directory tree with icons

You need to install Python package emoji in order to visualize the folder and file icons. This can be done by:

pip install emoji

Now we can visualize them by:

import seedir as sd

path = '/opt/sublime_text'
sd.seedir(path=path, style='emoji',  exclude_folders='Packages')

The result is shown on the image below:

Custom solution - list folders and files

If you like to store the result into CSV file or JSON output then you may want to build a custom solution.

Below you can find an example how to list files and folders tree structure with Python code:

import os

def list_files_folders(start_path):
	for root, dirs, files in os.walk(start_path):
    	level = root.replace(start_path, '').count(os.sep)
    	indent = ' ' * 4 * (level)
    	print(f'{indent}{os.path.basename(root)}/')
    	subindent = ' ' * 4 * (level + 1)
    	for f in files:
        	print(f'{subindent}{f}')

path = '/home/user/'
list_files_folders(path)

The result will be something like:

user/
	note1.md
	Documentation/
    	note2.md
    	note3.md

We will modify the code above in order to store the file structure to Pandas DataFrame in the next section.

Store file/folder tree as DataFrame

If you like to store the file tree with:

• item
• parent
• level

to a Pandas DataFrame we will modify the code to store all the folders as parent and child tree:

import os
import pandas as pd

data = []

def build_tree(root, level):
	folder = os.path.basename(root)
	parent = os.path.dirname(root)
	parent_folder = parent.split('/')[-1]
	# print(level, folder, parent_folder)
	return [level, folder, parent_folder]

def list_folders(start_path):
	for root, dirs, files in os.walk(start_path):
    	level = root.replace(start_path, '').count(os.sep)
    	indent = ' ' * 4 * (level)
    	subindent = ' ' * 4 * (level + 1)
    	data.append(build_tree(root, level))
       	 
list_folders('/home/user/')       	 

df = pd.DataFrame(data)
df.columns = ['level', 'name', 'parent']
df

This will give us:

Now we can easily convert the file and directory tree to JSON or CSV by:

df.to_csv()
df.to_json()

More about those methods can be read here: How to Export DataFrame to JSON with Pandas

Conclusion

In this article, we tried to answer on the following questions:

• How do I get a list of files in a directory tree in Python?
• How do I get a list of files in Python?
• How to get a list of all files in a folder and subfolders in Python?
• How do I get a directory tree in Python?
• Convert directory tree to json in Python