Moving certain files from subdirectories in Python

Question

I have a large folder with lots of subfolders, each of which contains one to several files. I'd like to move some of these files based on their filename. I have a list containing the filenames of the files I want to move, so basically I would like to check for every file in the mither directory if it's name's on the list and if so - move it to the new directory.

I wrote the following script, but unfortunately it doesn't work. Does anyone have an idea how to fix it, or a better suggestion for a script that would perform the desired function?

import os
import shutil

curr_fold = "/Users/ruthersh/Alice/Bacterial_seqs/FAA"
dest = "/Users/ruthersh/Alice/Bacterial_seqs/Plasmids"

for (dirname, dirs, files) in os.walk(curr_fold):
    for filename in files:
        if (filename[:9]) in NCS:
            src = os.path.realpath(filename)
            shutil.move(src, dest)

What do you mean *"doesn't work"*? Errors (provide full traceback)? What is `NCS`? — jonrsharpe, Jun 01 '14 at 10:57

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 01 '14 at 15:28

From Python Standard Library documentation on os.walk : Note that the names in the lists contain no path components. To get a full path (which begins with top) to a file or directory in dirpath, do os.path.join(dirpath, name). So you should have

src = os.join(dirname, filename)

If something goes wrong, please add some print statements to verify the values of src, and eventually dest to see what you really ask to shutils.

Moving certain files from subdirectories in Python

1 Answers1