Recently I was working on file generation using python, before generating any file, I had to check if file exists or not, to check if file exists or not, I had to find a way to do in in program. As usual, this task is very easy using python.
Checking if file exists or not can be done in multiple ways using python, here is one using “os” module
os.path module has functions such as isfile, isdir and exists which helps us check if file or directory exists or not.
Here is the output
$ python3.6 file_exists_01.py file_exists : True file_exists : False dir_exists : False dir_exists : True dir_exists : False exists : True exists : True
If you use isfile() on directory, outcome will be False, you need to use isfile or isdir as per requirement. Alternatively, you can use exists function as well, this returns True if input file or directory path is valid. Please refer to os.path documentation for further details.
Here is another way to check if file exists or not using pathlib module.
Output is
$ python3.6 file_exists_02.py var : False var : True var : True var : False var : True var : True
Both the modules have similar features, you can choose whichever is convenient to you.