How do I read the number of files in a folder using Python?

Question

How do I read the number of files in a specific folder using Python? Example code would be awesome!

Answer 1

pathlib, that is new in v. 3.4, makes like easier. The line labelled 1 makes a non-recursive list of the current folder, the one labelled 2 the recursive list.

from pathlib import Path

import os
os.chdir('c:/utilities')

print (len(list(Path('.').glob('*')))) ## 1
print (len(list(Path('.').glob('**/*')))) ## 2

There are more goodies too. With these additional lines you can see both the absolute and relative file names for those items that are files.

for item in Path('.').glob('*'):
    if item.is_file():
        print (str(item), str(item.absolute()))

Result:

boxee.py c:\utilities\boxee.py
boxee_user_catalog.sqlite c:\utilities\boxee_user_catalog.sqlite
find RSS.py c:\utilities\find RSS.py
MyVideos34.sqlite c:\utilities\MyVideos34.sqlite
newsletter-1 c:\utilities\newsletter-1
notes.txt c:\utilities\notes.txt
README c:\utilities\README
saveHighlighted.ahk c:\utilities\saveHighlighted.ahk
saveHighlighted.ahk.bak c:\utilities\saveHighlighted.ahk.bak
temp.htm c:\utilities\temp.htm
to_csv.py c:\utilities\to_csv.py