os.DirEntry

class os.DirEntry

Object yielded by scandir() to expose the file path and other file attributes of a directory entry.

scandir() will provide as much of this information as possible without making additional system calls. When a stat() or lstat() system call is made, the DirEntry object will cache the result.

DirEntry instances are not intended to be stored in long-lived data structures; if you know the file metadata has changed or if a long time has elapsed since calling scandir(), call os.stat(entry.path) to fetch up-to-date information.

Because the DirEntry methods can make operating system calls, they may also raise OSError. If you need very fine-grained control over errors, you can catch OSError when calling one of the DirEntry methods and handle as appropriate.

Attributes and methods on a DirEntry instance are as follows:

name

The entry’s base filename, relative to the scandir() path argument.

The name attribute will be of the same type (str or bytes) as the scandir() path argument. Use fsdecode() to decode byte filenames.

path

The entry’s full path name: equivalent to os.path.join(scandir_path, entry.name) where scandir_path is the scandir() path argument. The path is only absolute if the scandir() path argument was absolute.

The path attribute will be of the same type (str or bytes) as the scandir() path argument. Use fsdecode() to decode byte filenames.

inode()

Return the inode number of the entry.

The result is cached on the DirEntry object. Use os.stat(entry.path, follow_symlinks=False).st_ino to fetch up-to-date information.

On the first, uncached call, a system call is required on Windows but not on Unix.

is_dir(*, follow_symlinks=True)

Return True if this entry is a directory or a symbolic link pointing to a directory; return False if the entry is or points to any other kind of file, or if it doesn’t exist anymore.

If follow_symlinks is False, return True only if this entry is a directory (without following symlinks); return False if the entry is any other kind of file or if it doesn’t exist anymore.

The result is cached on the DirEntry object, with a separate cache for follow_symlinks True and False. Call os.stat() along with stat.S_ISDIR() to fetch up-to-date information.

On the first, uncached call, no system call is required in most cases. Specifically, for non-symlinks, neither Windows or Unix require a system call, except on certain Unix file systems, such as network file systems, that return dirent.d_type == DT_UNKNOWN. If the entry is a symlink, a system call will be required to follow the symlink unless follow_symlinks is False.

This method can raise OSError, such as PermissionError, but FileNotFoundError is caught and not raised.

is_file(*, follow_symlinks=True)

Return True if this entry is a file or a symbolic link pointing to a file; return False if the entry is or points to a directory or other non-file entry, or if it doesn’t exist anymore.

If follow_symlinks is False, return True only if this entry is a file (without following symlinks); return False if the entry is a directory or other non-file entry, or if it doesn’t exist anymore.

The result is cached on the DirEntry object. Caching, system calls made, and exceptions raised are as per is_dir().

is_symlink()

Return True if this entry is a symbolic link (even if broken); return False if the entry points to a directory or any kind of file, or if it doesn’t exist anymore.

The result is cached on the DirEntry object. Call os.path.islink() to fetch up-to-date information.

On the first, uncached call, no system call is required in most cases. Specifically, neither Windows or Unix require a system call, except on certain Unix file systems, such as network file systems, that return dirent.d_type == DT_UNKNOWN.

This method can raise OSError, such as PermissionError, but FileNotFoundError is caught and not raised.

stat(*, follow_symlinks=True)

Return a stat_result object for this entry. This method follows symbolic links by default; to stat a symbolic link add the follow_symlinks=False argument.

On Unix, this method always requires a system call. On Windows, it only requires a system call if follow_symlinks is True and the entry is a symbolic link.

On Windows, the st_ino, st_dev and st_nlink attributes of the stat_result are always set to zero. Call os.stat() to get these attributes.

The result is cached on the DirEntry object, with a separate cache for follow_symlinks True and False. Call os.stat() to fetch up-to-date information.

Note that there is a nice correspondence between several attributes and methods of DirEntry and of pathlib.Path. In particular, the name attribute has the same meaning, as do the is_dir(), is_file(), is_symlink() and stat() methods.