Python filename from file

How to get file name from a path in Python?

In this Python tutorial, we will discuss, different ways to get file name from a path in Python. Not only this, I will also show you how to get the file extension from the file name in Python. Finally, we will discuss, how to get the file name without extension in Python.

How to get the file name from Path in Python

Here we will see at least 3 different ways to get the file name from path in Python.

Let’s consider an example file path: /home/user/documents/sample.txt . Here, sample.txt is the file name that we are interested in extracting. Below, we will explore different methods to achieve this.

Method 1: Using os.path.basename()

The os module in Python provides a plethora of functions to interact with the operating system. The os.path.basename() function can be used to extract the filename from a path.

import os file_path = "/home/user/documents/sample.txt" file_name = os.path.basename(file_path) print(file_name) # Output: sample.txt 

Here, the os.path.basename() function takes the file path as an argument and returns the base name, i.e., the file name. Check the screenshot below for the output:

Method 2: Using pathlib.Path()

pathlib is a module in Python 3, which is object-oriented and a more modern approach to handling filesystem paths. It’s recommended to use pathlib over os.path for improved readability and simplicity.

from pathlib import Path file_path = Path("/home/user/documents/sample.txt") file_name = file_path.name print(file_name) # Output: sample.txt

In this example, we create a Path object with the file path as an argument and then use the name attribute to obtain the file name.

Check the screenshot below for the output:

Method 3: Using string splitting

This method is less reliable and not recommended for use in production code, but for the sake of completeness, we can also split the string to extract the filename.

file_path = "/home/user/documents/sample.txt" file_name = file_path.split('/')[-1] print(file_name) # Output: sample.txt 

Here, we split the file path string by the delimiter / and select the last element in the resulting list. This method is not recommended because it relies on a fixed delimiter and can cause issues with different operating systems.

Handling Edge Cases

The methods above work well for standard file paths, but what if the file path ends with a directory separator ( / or \ depending on the OS)? In such cases, the first two methods are robust enough to handle them, but the string splitting method will fail.

Let’s demonstrate this with an example:

import os from pathlib import Path file_path = "/home/user/documents/directory/" # Using os.path.basename() file_name_os = os.path.basename(file_path.rstrip(os.path.sep)) print(file_name_os) # Output: directory # Using pathlib.Path() file_path_obj = Path(file_path) file_name_pathlib = file_path_obj.name if file_path_obj.is_dir() else file_path_obj.parent.name print(file_name_pathlib) # Output: directory 

The os.path.basename() method can handle this by stripping the directory separator at the end before processing. For pathlib , we check if the path is a directory; if so, we extract the name, otherwise, we use the parent directory’s name.

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In this Python tutorial, we discuss how to get the file name from the path in Python.

I am Bijay Kumar, a Microsoft MVP in SharePoint. Apart from SharePoint, I started working on Python, Machine learning, and artificial intelligence for the last 5 years. During this time I got expertise in various Python libraries also like Tkinter, Pandas, NumPy, Turtle, Django, Matplotlib, Tensorflow, Scipy, Scikit-Learn, etc… for various clients in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, etc. Check out my profile.

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Python – Get Filename from Path with Examples

In this tutorial, we will look at how to get the filename from a path using Python.

How to get the filename from a path in Python?

There are a number of ways to get the filename from its path in python. You can use the os module’s os.path.basename() function or os.path.split() function. You can also use the pathlib module to get the file name.

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Let look at the above-mentioned methods with the help of examples. We will be trying to get the filename of a locally saved CSV file in python.

1. Using os module

The os module comes with a number of useful functions for interacting with the file system. You can use the following functions from the os to get the filename.

Filename from os.path.basename()

The os.path.basename() function gives the base filename from the passed path. For example, let’s use it to get the file name of a CSV file stored locally.

import os # the absoulte path of the file file_path = r"C:\Users\piyush\Documents\Projects\movie_reviews_data\IMDB Dataset 5k.csv" # get the filename print(os.path.basename(file_path))

You can see that we get the filename along with its extension as a string. To get the filename without its extension you can simply split the text on “.” and take the first part.

# filename without extension print(os.path.basename(file_path).split(".")[0])

You might also be interested in knowing how to Get File size using Python

Filename from os.path.split()

You can also use the os.path.split() function to get the filename. It is used to split the pathname into two parts – head and tail, where the tail is the last pathname component and the head is everything leading up to that. For example, for the path a/b/c.txt , the tail would be c.txt and the head would be a/b

Let’s now use it to find the filename of the CSV file from its path.

# the absoulte path of the file file_path = r"C:\Users\piyush\Documents\Projects\movie_reviews_data\IMDB Dataset 5k.csv" # split the file path head, tail = os.path.split(file_path) # get the filename print(tail)

You can see that the tail gives us the filename. Let’s now go ahead and see what do we have in the head part.

# show the path head print(head)

C:\Users\piyush\Documents\Projects\movie_reviews_data

The head contains the part of the file path leading up to the filename. Note that the os.path.split() function determines the head and tail based on the occurrence of the last directory separator \ or / depending on the OS. For example, if the path ends in a separator it will give an empty string as the tail.

For more on the os.path.split() function, refer to its documentation.

2. Using pathlib module

For python versions 3.4 and above, you can also use the pathlib module to interact with the file system in python. Among other things, you can use it to get the filename from a path. For example, let’s get the filename of the same CSV file used above.

from pathlib import Path # the absoulte path of the file file_path = r"C:\Users\piyush\Documents\Projects\movie_reviews_data\IMDB Dataset 5k.csv" # get the filename print(Path(file_path).name)

You can see that we get the correct filename using the name attribute of Path .

With this, we come to the end of this tutorial. The code examples and results presented in this tutorial have been implemented in a Jupyter Notebook with a python (version 3.8.3) kernel.

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Author

Piyush is a data professional passionate about using data to understand things better and make informed decisions. He has experience working as a Data Scientist in the consulting domain and holds an engineering degree from IIT Roorkee. His hobbies include watching cricket, reading, and working on side projects. View all posts

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