Python `pathlib` Cheatsheet

1. Importing

from pathlib import Path

2. Creating Paths

# Current working directory
p = Path.cwd()

# Home directory
home = Path.home()

# Relative path
p = Path("folder/subfolder/file.txt")

# Absolute path
p = Path("/usr/local/bin")

# Convert to string
str_path = str(p)

3. Path Components

p = Path("/home/max/docs/report.pdf")

p.name       # "report.pdf"
p.stem       # "report"
p.suffix     # ".pdf"
p.suffixes   # [".tar", ".gz"]
p.parent     # "/home/max/docs"
p.parents[0] # "/home/max/docs"
p.parents[1] # "/home/max"

4. Path Operations

# Joining paths
p = Path("/home/max") / "docs" / "report.pdf"

# Replace filename or extension
p.with_name("new_file.txt")
p.with_suffix(".md")

5. File / Directory Checks

p.exists()     # True/False
p.is_file()    # True if file
p.is_dir()     # True if directory
p.is_symlink() # True if symlink

6. File System Operations

# Read / write text
p.write_text("Hello World")
content = p.read_text()

# Read / write bytes
p.write_bytes(b"binary data")
data = p.read_bytes()

# Make directories
Path("new/folder").mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)

# Remove file
p.unlink()

# Rename / move
p.rename("new_name.txt")
p.replace("some/other/location.txt")

7. Glob Patterns

# Match all .txt files
for file in Path("docs").glob("*.txt"):
    print(file)

# Recursive glob
for file in Path("docs").rglob("*.txt"):
    print(file)

8. Resolve & Absolute Paths

p = Path("docs/../report.pdf")
p.resolve()  # Absolute normalized path

9. Path.iterdir()

p = Path("docs")
for item in p.iterdir():
    print(item)

# Filter files only
for f in Path(".").iterdir():
    if f.is_file():
        print(f)

# Filter directories only
for d in Path(".").iterdir():
    if d.is_dir():
        print(d)

# Sorted
for entry in sorted(Path(".").iterdir()):
    print(entry.name)

# Filter by extension
for f in Path(".").iterdir():
    if f.suffix == ".txt":
        print(f)

# List comprehension
files = [f.name for f in Path(".").iterdir() if f.is_file()]

10. Quick Comparison

Method	Scope	Example
`iterdir()`	Direct children only	`Path(".").iterdir()`
`glob("*.py")`	Pattern-matching, 1 level deep	`Path(".").glob("*.py")`
`rglob("*.py")`	Recursive search	`Path(".").rglob("*.py")`

Pathlib Methods - Arguments Explained

Method	Arguments	Default	Explanation
`mkdir()`	mode, parents, exist_ok	0o777, False, False	Create a directory. parents=True creates parent directories. exist_ok=True ignores if directory exists.
`rmdir()`	-	-	Remove empty directory. Raises OSError if not empty.
`unlink()`	missing_ok	False	Delete a file. missing_ok=True ignores if file missing.
`rename()`	target	-	Rename or move file. Overwrites not allowed if exists.
`replace()`	target	-	Rename or move file. Overwrites if target exists.
`touch()`	mode, exist_ok	0o666, True	Create empty file. exist_ok=True ignores if file exists.
`open()`	mode, encoding	"r", None	Open file handle like `open()`.
`read_text()`	encoding, errors	None, None	Read file as string.
`write_text()`	data, encoding, errors	-	Write string to file.
`glob()`	pattern	-	Pattern match files in directory.
`rglob()`	pattern	-	Recursive pattern match files.
`iterdir()`	-	-	Iterate over directory entries (direct children only).

Python pathlib Cheatsheet

Python `pathlib` Cheatsheet