Outputting timestamps from a list of files

Question

I'm having problems outputting timestamps for files in a directory. Want to list timestamps if they reach a certain time window, currently can't even get output. Not sure what I am doing wrong and hitting a wall atm

from datetime import datetime, timedelta
from os import scandir

DIR = "/home/user/directory"
TIME_FORMAT = "%Y-%m-%d%H:%M:%S.%fZ"


def convert_timestamps():
    """converting timestamps to human readable"""
    # timestamp = datetime.utcnow() - timedelta(days=7)
    timestamp = datetime.utcfromtimestamp
    file_times = timestamp.strftime(TIME_FORMAT)
    return file_times

def get_files():
"""getting files from dir"""
    dir_filenames = scandir(DIR)
    for filename in dir_filenames:
        if filename.is_file():
            file_stat = os.stat(str(filename))
            # info = os.stat(filename)
            print("Last Modified time: {}".format(filename.name, convert_timestamps(file_stat.st_mtime)))



if __name__ == 'main':
    get_files()

The following snippet works, but is obviously not much of a program

DIR = "/home/user/directory"
TIME_FORMAT = "%Y-%m-%d%H:%M:%S.%fZ"


file_stat = os.stat(DIR)
timestamp = datetime.utcnow() - timedelta(days=7)
file_times = timestamp.strftime(TIME_FORMAT)
print("Last mod time are: ", file_times)

Your snippet that works doesn't use the `file_stat` variable at all. Are there even files in the directory and is `scandir` iterating over them? — Iain Shelvington, Aug 07 '20 at 00:24
You're right, a foresight on my part. Yes there are files in the directory, no scandir does not appear to be working If there is documentation or something that I can be pointed to, I have searched and do not see anything helpful enough — zendannyy, Aug 07 '20 at 01:03

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 07 '20 at 06:20

Recommend having a look at pathlib and/or glob to simplify things. Here, for example

from datetime import datetime, timezone
from pathlib import Path

DIR = "/home/user/directory"
TIME_FORMAT = "%Y-%m-%d%_H:%M:%S.%fZ"

dir_content = list(Path(DIR).glob('*')) # give me anything...

for p in dir_content:
    if p.is_file():
        timestring = (
               datetime.fromtimestamp(p.stat().st_mtime, timezone.utc)
               .strftime(TIME_FORMAT)
               )
        print(f"{p.name} \tLast Modified time: {timestring}")

Minor remark: since you explicitly want UTC ("Z"), I'd prefer to set timezone.utc explicitly instead of using utcfromtimestamp (which is ...confusing).

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 07 '20 at 02:29

The main issue was the module name. You need to check for __main__, not main. You also were not passing any parameter to the convert_timestamps function.

This code should work:

from datetime import datetime, timedelta
from os import scandir
import os

DIR = "C:/tmp"  #"/home/user/directory"
TIME_FORMAT = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%fZ"


def convert_timestamps(stmp):
    """converting timestamps to human readable"""
    # timestamp = datetime.utcnow() - timedelta(days=7)
    timestamp = datetime.utcfromtimestamp(stmp)
    file_times = timestamp.strftime(TIME_FORMAT)
    return file_times

def get_files():
    """getting files from dir"""
    dir_filenames = scandir(DIR)
    for filename in dir_filenames:
        if filename.is_file():
            file_stat = os.stat(filename)
            # info = os.stat(filename)
            print("{} \tLast Modified time: {}".format(filename.name, convert_timestamps(file_stat.st_mtime)))

if __name__ == '__main__':   # must be __main__
    get_files()

Output

newfile.txt     Last Modified time: 2020-07-23 03:06:20.470809Z
oktatext.png    Last Modified time: 2020-07-01 16:34:03.057133Z
output.xlsx     Last Modified time: 2020-08-03 14:38:47.973999Z
python.png      Last Modified time: 2020-06-29 14:33:03.803685Z
pythonlogo.jpg  Last Modified time: 2020-07-06 02:53:09.642297Z
SomeFile2.dll   Last Modified time: 2020-08-01 21:26:42.978218Z

I missed that on the main built-in Appreciate it! – zendannyy Aug 07 '20 at 17:29 — zendannyy, Aug 07 '20 at 17:29

Outputting timestamps from a list of files

2 Answers2