Why this recursive function doesn't work in python

Question

Program for recursively printing files and directory in python #!/usr/bin/env python

import os

temp_path = os.getcwd()
path = temp_path.split("/")
print path[-1]

def recursive(wrkdir):

    for items in os.listdir(wrkdir):
        if os.path.isfile(items):
            print "---"+items

    for items in os.listdir(wrkdir):
        if os.path.isdir(items):
            print "---"+items
            #following call to recursive function doesn't work properly
            recursive("./"+items)

recursive(os.getcwd())

"./"+items is only going to be the path to the folder in the first level of the recursion. Maybe os.path.join(wrkdir, items) — khelwood
– khelwood, Commented Dec 8, 2015 at 12:29
The same for os.path.isdir, you need to provide the full path — Mel
– Mel, Commented Dec 8, 2015 at 12:30
let there are 2 folder named as fol1, fol2 and 2 files names as file1.txt, file2,txt in "xyz" dir. so if we run above prog from xyz folder then os.getcwd() will be /home/user/xyz. so at first wrkdir contain /home/user/xyz and after os.path.isdir(items), recursive will be called by /home/user/xyz/fol1. which looks perfectly fine — lalitmunne9
– lalitmunne9, Commented Dec 8, 2015 at 12:36
With the code above, the recursive function is called on ./fol1, and not the full path. Print wrkdir if you want to be sure. — Mel
– Mel, Commented Dec 8, 2015 at 12:47

Daniele Pantaleone · Accepted Answer · 2015-12-08 12:58:31Z

2

You need to used the absolute file/directory path when checking for file/dir using os.path.isfile or os.path.isdir:

import os

def recursive(wrkdir):

    for item in os.listdir(wrkdir):
        if os.path.isfile(os.path.join(wrkdir, item)):
            print "--- {0}".format(items)

    for item in os.listdir(wrkdir):
        if os.path.isdir(os.path.join(wrkdir, item)):
            print "--- {0}".format(items)
            recursive(os.path.join(wrkdir, item))

recursive(os.getcwd())

answered Dec 8, 2015 at 12:58

Daniele Pantaleone

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Vivek Phuloria · Accepted Answer · 2015-12-08 12:56:21Z

0

try this :

def recurse(cur_dir,level=0):
    for item_name in os.listdir(cur_dir):
        item = os.path.join(cur_dir,item_name)
        if os.path.isfile(item):
            print('\t'*level+'-',item_name)
        if os.path.isdir(item):
            print('\t'*level+'>',item_name)
            recurse(item,level+1)

recurse(os.getcwd())

answered Dec 8, 2015 at 12:56

Vivek Phuloria

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