Working with Files: Check if a File Exists in Python

Ever experienced the pressure of finding a particular thing at a particular time? And you wasted a lot of time searching for it only to find out that the file is not even there in the first place. Well, this happens often when you are code has a lot of divisions, and if you store each one of them as a separate folder and you will forget where you stored it and may waste time searching in the wrong one.

But fear not, Python has a solution to it. In the previous articles, you learned to read a text file, write to a text file and create a text file which is essentially the important basics of Python and in this article, you are going to learn to check if a file exists in Python which can save you a lot of time. Let's get started.

When working with files in Python, it's often necessary to check if a file exists before performing certain functions. Whether you want to avoid overwriting an existing file or ensure that a required file is present before proceeding, as it can help you reduce the hassle of searching.

Python provides two modules for doing this operation. To check if a file exists in Python, you can use the 'os.path' method or the 'pathlib' method. Both options provide convenient methods to perform file-related operations, including file existence checks.

Let's understand each method with an example.

Here's an example of how to check if a file exists using the 'os.path' method.

 >>> import os
 >>> file_path = "path/to/file.txt"
 >>> if os.path.exists(file_path):
 >>>     print("File exists.")
 >>> else:
 >>>     print("File does not exist.")

In this example, the 'os.path.exists()' function is used to check if the file exists. It takes the file path as an argument and returns 'True' if the file exists and 'False' otherwise. You can then use a conditional statement to print the appropriate message based on the result.

Here's an example of how to check if a file exists using the 'pathlib' method.

 >>> from pathlib import Path
 >>> file_path = "path/to/file.txt"
 >>> if Path(file_path).is_file():
 >>>     print("File exists.")
 >>> else:
 >>>     print("File does not exist.")

In this case, we use the 'Path()' constructor from the pathlib method to create a Path object with the file path. Then, the 'is_file()' method is called on the Path object to check if the file exists. It returns True if the file exists and False otherwise.

Both approaches allow you to determine whether a file exists in Python and perform further actions based on the result.

NOTE: You can use "pathlib" method in Python 3.4 and above as it was introduced in the version.

In conclusion, by using the functionalities of these methods, you can easily determine if a file exists and then proceed with your desired logic based on the result. These methods offer flexibility and compatibility across different versions of Python, allowing you to effectively handle file existence checks in your Python programs.

I hope you understood this concept and if you have any questions or doubts, feel free to contact us.