How do I check whether a file exists without exceptions?

Question

How do I check if a file exists or not, without using the try statement?

Answer 1

How do I check whether a file exists, without using the try statement?

In 2016, this is still arguably the easiest way to check if both a file exists and if it is a file:

import os
os.path.isfile('./file.txt')    # Returns True if exists, else False

isfile is actually just a helper method that internally uses os.stat and stat.S_ISREG(mode) underneath. This os.stat is a lower-level method that will provide you with detailed information about files, directories, sockets, buffers, and more. More about os.stat here

Note: However, this approach will not lock the file in any way and therefore your code can become vulnerable to "time of check to time of use" (TOCTTOU) bugs.

So raising exceptions is considered to be an acceptable, and Pythonic, approach for flow control in your program. And one should consider handling missing files with IOErrors, rather than if statements (just an advice).