Get file attributes (hidden, readonly, system, archive) in Python

Question

Just started learning Python. How can i get a status of file's attributes in Python? I know that os.chmod(fullname, stat.S_IWRITE) delete readonly attribute, but how can i get status without changing it? I need to get all of the attributes of "hidden", "system", "readonly", "archive"

which operating system, on linux for instance a hidden file is any file with a `.` as the first character of the name, on windows though I think it is a file attribute. — Tony Suffolk 66, Nov 29 '14 at 09:58

score 9 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 30 '15 at 17:41

9

You can use directly the Windows API like that

import win32con
import win32api
attrs = win32api.GetFileAttributes(filepath)
attrs & win32con.FILE_ATTRIBUTE_SYSTEM
attrs & win32con.FILE_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN

answered Oct 30 '15 at 17:41

loopingz

1,149
17
19

What's the `attrs &` part do? – voices Mar 11 '19 at 10:25
The FileAttributes is flags integer so you need to check each bit, each bit represent a boolean value. – loopingz Mar 11 '19 at 13:46
Well after getting attr, how to extract those hidden or archived and other values from this? – Ratul Hasan Dec 02 '21 at 15:02

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 28 '14 at 21:45

you need to take a look at module stat and os.stat

 os.stat(path)

Perform the equivalent of a stat() system call on the given path. (This function follows symlinks; to stat a symlink use lstat().)

The return value is an object whose attributes correspond to the members of the stat structure, namely:

    st_mode - protection bits,
    st_ino - inode number,
    st_dev - device,
    st_nlink - number of hard links,
    st_uid - user id of owner,
    st_gid - group id of owner,
    st_size - size of file, in bytes,
    st_atime - time of most recent access,
    st_mtime - time of most recent content modification,
    st_ctime - platform dependent; time of most recent metadata change on Unix, or the time of creation on Windows)

2

Where's the hidden attribute? – Alex Jul 06 '20 at 19:56

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 21 '19 at 14:29

If you are using python 3.4+ you can use pathlib stat method.

from pathlib import Path

print(Path(r"D:\temp\test.txt").stat())

Output:

os.stat_result(
    st_mode=33206, 
    st_ino=204632308068721491, 
    st_dev=67555953, 
    st_nlink=1, 
    st_uid=0, 
    st_gid=0, 
    st_size=4, 
    st_atime=1550757968, 
    st_mtime=1550757968, 
    st_ctime=1550757951
)

here is more information about os.stat_result

Get file attributes (hidden, readonly, system, archive) in Python

3 Answers3

Linked