MCA-106, Python Programming

UNIT-II

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Python Data Types

Built-in Data Types
• In programming, data type is an important concept.
• Variables can store data of different types, and different types can do different
things.
• Python has the following data types built-in by default, in these categories:
Data Type Keyword used in Python
Text Type str
Numeric Type int, float, complex
Sequence Type list, tuple, range
Mapping Type Dict
Set Type set, frozenset
Boolean Type bool
Binary Types bytes, bytearray, memoryview

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Python String
Strings in python are surrounded by either single quotation marks, or
double quotation marks.
‘Powerful’ is same as “Powerful”
You can display a string literal with the print() function.
Assigning a string to a variable is done with the variable name followed by
an equal sign and the string:
a = "Hello“ or a = ’Hello’
You can assign a multiline string to a variable by using three quotes:
a = “ ” ” Python was designed for readability, and has some similarities
to the English language with influence from mathematics. “ “ ”
Or
a = ‘ ‘ ‘ Python was designed for readability, and has some similarities
to the English language with influence from mathematics. ‘ ‘ ‘

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 MCA-106, Python Programming

Python String
continued…
Strings are Arrays
• Like many other popular programming languages, strings in Python are
arrays of bytes representing unicode characters.
• However, Python does not have a character data type, a single
character is simply a string with a length of 1.
• Square brackets can be used to access elements of the string.
• String data types are immutable. Which means a string value cannot
be updated.
Get the character at position 1 (remember that the first character has the
position 0):

a = "Hello, World!"
print(a[1])

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Python String
continued…
String functions or operations on strings:
• Looping Through a String
for x in “BVICAM":
print(x)
• String Length – len()
• Check String – returns boolean
txt = "The best things in life are free!"
print("free" in txt)
• Check if NOT - returns boolean
txt = "The best things in life are free!"
print("expensive" not in txt)
• Slicing
b = "Hello, World!"
print(b[2:5])
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Python String
continued…
Upper Case – upper()
Lower Case – lower()
Remove whitespace – strip(), lstrip(), rstrip()
Replace String – str.replace(old_str, new_str)
Split String – str.split() , str.split(‘-’)
String Concatenation – plus(+) operator
Stings Appending – str1 +=str2
Deleting string – del str
count(str,beg,end)
find(str,beg,end)
index(str,beg,end)

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 MCA-106, Python Programming

Python String
continued…
String Format - we can combine strings and numbers by using the
format method.
1. The format() method takes the passed arguments, formats them, and
places them in the string where the placeholders { } are:
code= 106
txt = “Paper Code of Python Programming is MCA - { }"
print(txt.format(code))

2. The format operator % allows users to construct strings, replacing

parts of strings with the data stored in variables. The syntax for the string
formatting operation is:

print(‘Course_name=%s and Course_code= %d' % (cname,ccode))

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Slice Operation
A substring of a string is called a Slice.

We can take a subset of a string from the original string by using [ ]

operator also known as slicing operator.

The syntax of slice operation in s[start : end : stride]

Stride refers to the number of characters to move forward after the first
character is retrieved from the string. The default value of stride is 1.

We can specify a negative value for the third argument. This is useful to
print the original string in reverse order.
print(str[ : : -1])

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Slice Operation
Try this:

Str=‘PYTHON’

print(str[-1])
print(str[-6])
print(str[-2:])
print(str[ : -2])
print(str[ -5 : -2])
print(str[ : : -3])

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 MCA-106, Python Programming

Python String
continued…
ord() Function:

This function returns the ASCII code of the character

ch=‘R’
print(ord(ch))

chr() Function:

This functions returns character represented by ASCII number.

print(chr(82))

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String Comparison
This is done using the following operators:
==: This checks whether two strings are equal
!=: This checks if two strings are not equal
<: This checks if the string on its left is smaller than that on its right
<=: This checks if the string on its left is smaller than or equal to that
on its right
>: This checks if the string on its left is greater than that on its right
>=: This checks if the string on its left is greater than or equal to that
on its right
• String comparison in Python takes place character by character. That
is, characters in the same positions are compared from both the
strings.
• If the characters fulfill the given comparison condition, it moves to the
characters in the next position. Otherwise, it merely returns False.
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Iterating String
string_name = “Python String“

for element in string_name:

print(element, end=' ')
print("\n")

for element in range(0, len(string_name)):

print(string_name[element])

Index=0
While index < len(string_name)
letter= string_name[index]
print(letter)
index+=1

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 MCA-106, Python Programming

Sequence Type
Sequences allow you to store multiple values in an organized and
efficient manner. There are several sequence types: strings, lists and
tuples. Two most popular sequence types are lists and Tuples.

• Each element of a sequence is assigned a number - its position or

index. The first index is zero, the second index is one, and so forth.

• Operations that can be performed on sequence types include indexing,

slicing, adding, multiplying, and checking for membership.

• In addition, Python has built-in functions for finding the length of a

sequence and for finding its largest and smallest elements.

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Python Lists
Python lists
The list is written as a list of comma-separated values (items) between
square brackets.
Important thing about a list is that items in a list need not be of the same
type.
Creating a list is as simple as putting different comma-separated values
between square brackets

list1 = ['physics', 'chemistry', 1997, 2000 ];

list2 = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7,8 ]
list3 = ["a", "b", "c", "d“ ]
print "list1[0]: ", list1[0]
print "list2[1:5]: ", list2[1:5]
list1[2] = 2021
del list1[2]

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Python Lists continued..

• List items are ordered, changeable, and allow duplicate values.
• When we say that lists are ordered, it means that the items have a
defined order, and that order will not change. If you add new items to a
list, the new items will be placed at the end of the list.
• The list is changeable, meaning that we can change, add, and remove
items in a list after it has been created.
• Since lists are indexed, lists can have items with the same value
• To determine how many items a list has, use the len() function
print(len(list1))
• To remove a list element, you can use either the del statement if you
know exactly which element(s) you are deleting or the remove()
method if you do not know.
del list1[2]
List1.remove(‘chemistry’)
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 MCA-106, Python Programming

Basic List Operaions

1. Len
2. Concatenation using +
3. Repetitions using *
4. In
5. Not in
6. Max
7. Min
8. Sum
9. All
10. Any
11. List
12. sorted

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Python Lists Methods

Sr.No. Methods with Description
1 list.append(obj)Appends object obj to list
2 list.count(obj)Returns count of how many times obj occurs in list
3 list.extend(seq)Appends the contents of seq to list
4 list.index(obj)Returns the lowest index in list that obj appears
5 list.insert(index, obj)Inserts object obj into list at offset index
6 list.pop([index])Removes and returns last object or obj from list
7 list.remove(obj)Removes object obj from list
8 list.reverse()Reverses objects of list in place
9 list.sort()Sorts objects of list
10 list.index(element, start, end) returns the index of the specified element in the list.

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Some Key Points

Insert(), remove() and sort() methods only modify the list and do not return
any value. If you print the return value of these methods, you will get None.

The sort() method uses ASCII values to sort the values in the list.

Items in a list can also be deleted by assigning an empty list to a slicme of

elements:
list1 = [‘a’,’e’,’m’,’n’,’p’,’q’,’i’,’o’,’u’]
list1[2:6] = []
print(list1) …….???

When one list is assigned to another list using the assignment operator(=),
then a new copy of list is NOT made. Instead, assignment makes the two
variables point to the same list in memory. This is known as aliasing.

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 MCA-106, Python Programming

Cloning a list in Python

There are various ways of copying or cloning a list in Python. These
various ways of copying takes different execution time, so we can
compare them on the basis of time.
• Using slicing technique
This is the easiest and the fastest way to clone a list. This method is
considered when we want to modify a list and also keep a copy of the
original. This process is also called cloning. This technique takes about
0.039 seconds and is the fastest technique.
list2=list1[:]
• Using the extend() method
The lists can be copied into a new list by using the extend() function.
This appends each element of the iterable object (e.g., anothre list) to
the end of the new list. This takes around 0.053 second to complete.
list2.extend(list1)

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Cloning a list in Python

• Using the list() method
This is the simplest method of cloning a list by using the builtin function
list(). This takes about 0.075 seconds to complete.
list2 = list(list1)
• Using the copy() method
The inbuilt method copy is used to copy all the elements from one list
to another. This takes around 1.488 seconds to complete.
list2= list1.copy()
• Using list comprehension
The method of list comprehension can be used to copy all the
elements individually from one list to another. This takes around 0.217
seconds to complete.
list2 = [i for I in list1]

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Cloning a list in Python

• Using the append() method
This can be used for appending and adding elements to list or copying
them to a new list. It is used to add elements to the last position of list.
This takes around 0.325 seconds to complete and is the slowest
method of cloning.
list2=[]
for item in list1: list2.append(item)

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 MCA-106, Python Programming

Python Tuples
Python Tuples
• A tuple is a collection of objects which ordered and immutable.
• Tuples are sequences, just like lists. The differences between tuples and lists
are, the tuples cannot be changed unlike lists and tuples use parentheses,
whereas lists use square brackets.
• Creating a tuple is as simple as putting different comma-separated values.

tup1= ('physics', 'chemistry', 1997, 2000 )

tup2 = (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7,8 )
tup3 = "a", "b", "c", "d“
tup4 =(50,)
print "tup1[0]: ", tup1[0]
print "tup2[1:5]: ", tup2[1:5]

• Please note, Tuples are immutable which means you cannot update or
change the values of tuple elements. You are able to take portions of existing
tuples to create new tuples
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Python Tuples
Tuple Assignment, Packing, and Unpacking
A literal tuple containing several items can be assigned to a single object:
tup1= ('physics', 'chemistry', 1997, 2000 )
When this occurs, it is as though the items in the tuple have been
“packed” into the object.
If that “packed” object is subsequently assigned to a new tuple, the
individual items are “unpacked” into the objects in the tuple:
(s1,s2,s3,s4) = tup1
When unpacking, the number of variables on the left must match the
number of values in the tuple

Create Tuple With One Item

• To create a tuple with only one item, you have to add a comma after
the item, otherwise Python will not recognize it as a tuple.
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Python Tuples
• Advantages of Tuple over List
• Since tuples are quite similar to lists, both of them are used in similar
situations. However, there are certain advantages of implementing a
tuple over a list. Below listed are some of the main advantages:
• We generally use tuples for heterogeneous (different) data types and
lists for homogeneous (similar) data types.
• Since tuples are immutable, iterating through a tuple is faster than with
list. So there is a slight performance boost.
• Tuples that contain immutable elements can be used as a key for a
dictionary. With lists, this is not possible.
• If you have data that doesn't change, implementing it as tuple will
guarantee that it remains write-protected.

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 MCA-106, Python Programming

Python Mapping Type

Python Dictionary
• Dictionaries are used to store data values in key:value pairs.
• A dictionary is a collection which is ordered*, changeable and does not allow
duplicates.
• Dictionaries are written with curly brackets, and have keys and values:
• Each key is separated from its value by a colon (:), the items are separated by
commas, and the whole thing is enclosed in curly braces.
• Keys are unique within a dictionary while values may not be.
• Dictionary keys are case-sensitive.
• The values of a dictionary can be of any type, but the keys must be of an
immutable data type such as strings, numbers, or tuples.
dict = {
‘Name’: ‘Arjun’,
‘Age’: 21,
‘Course’: ‘MCA’}
Print(dict[“Name”])
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Creating Python
Dictionary
Creating a Dictionary:

1. The syntax to create an empty dictionary is:

Dictionary_variable = { }

2. The syntax to create a dictionary with key-value pair is:

Dictionary_variable = { key1:val1, key2:val2,…..}

3. To create a dictionary with one or more key-value pairs, we can use dict() function.
The dict() function creates a dictionary from a sequence of key-value pairs:

Print(dict([(‘Roll_No’, ‘00411604421’), (‘Name’, ‘Aayush’), (‘Course’,’MCA’)]))

The output will be?

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Creating Python
Dictionary
4. Dictionary comprehension is another way of creating a dictionary. It is a syntactic
construct which creates a dictionary based on existing sequence:

D = {variable: expression for variable in sequence [ if condition]}

It has three parts – for loop, condition and expression

The expression generates elements(values) of dictionary from items in the sequence that
satisfy the condition

dict1 = { x : 2*x for x in range(1,10)}

print(dict1)

The output will be?

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 MCA-106, Python Programming

Python Dictionary
continued…
Accessing Items
x = dict1.get(“Name”)
print(dict1[‘Name’])
If you try to access an item with a key, which is not specified in the dictionary, a KEyError is
generated.

Change Values
dict1[‘Name’] = ‘Aayush Khurana’
dict.update({“Course” : “MBA”})

Adding Items
dict1[‘Marks’] = 91
dict1.update({“City” : “New Delhi”})

*Dictionary is an associative array also known as hashes since any key of the dictionary
can be associated or mapped to a value.
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Python Dictionary
continued…
Removing Items
del dict1[“City”]
del dict1

To delete or remove all items in just one statement, use clear() function.
dict1.clear()

We can use pop() to delete a particular key from the dictionary:

dict1.pop(‘Marks’)

Loop through a Dictionary:

• Print all key names in the dictionary, one by one:
for x in dict:
print(x)
• Print all values in the dictionary, one by one:
for x in dict:
print(dict[x])
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Python Dictionary
continued…
Copy a Dictionary
You cannot copy a dictionary simply by typing dict1 = dict2

• One way is to use the built-in Dictionary method copy()

dict1 = { ‘Name’: ‘Arjun’, ‘Age’: 21, ‘Course’: ‘MCA’}
dict2 = dict2.copy()
print(dict2)

• Another way to make a copy is to use the built-in function dict()

dict1 = { ‘Name’: ‘Arjun’, ‘Age’: 21, ‘Course’: ‘MCA’}
dict2 = dict(dict2)
print(dict2)

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 MCA-106, Python Programming

Python Dictionary
continued…
Nested Dictionaries
A dictionary can contain dictionaries, this is called nested dictionaries.
My_Library ={
“Book1”: {
‘Title’: ‘Fundamentals of IT’,
‘Author’:’Kapoor’,
‘Publisher’:’TMH’,
‘Year’: 2006
},
“Book2”: {
‘Title’: ‘Introduction to Python Programming’,
‘Author’:’Timothy A. Budd’,
‘Publisher’: ‘S.Chand’,
‘Year’: 2016
},
“Book3”: {
‘Title’: ‘PL/’SQL Programming,
‘Author’:’Ivaan Bayross’,
‘Publisher’: ‘Pearson’,
‘Year’: 2010}
}

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Python Dictionary
Methods
Method Description
clear() Removes all the elements from the dictionary

copy() Returns a copy of the dictionary

fromkeys() Returns a dictionary with the specified keys and value
get() Returns the value of the specified key
items() Returns a list containing a tuple for each key value pair
keys() Returns a list containing the dictionary's keys
pop() Removes the element with the specified key
popitem() Removes the last inserted key-value pair
setdefault() Returns the value of the specified key. If the key does not exist: insert the key, with the
specified value
update() Updates the dictionary with the specified key-value pairs

values() Returns a list of all the values in the dictionary

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Python Dictionary Methods

Sorting a Dictionary in Python
sorted() function
• The sorted() function can accept three parameters: the iterable, the
key, and reverse. sorted(iterable, key)

sales = {'apple':10, 'banana':12, 'orange':6, 'grapes':100}

print(sorted(sales))

print(sorted(sales,key=sales.get))

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 MCA-106, Python Programming

Python Dictionary Methods

Dictionaries and lists share the following characteristics:
• Both are mutable.
• Both are dynamic. They can grow and shrink as needed.
• Both can be nested. A list can contain another list. A dictionary can
contain another dictionary. A dictionary can also contain a list, and vice
versa.

Dictionaries differ from lists primarily in how elements are accessed:

• List elements are accessed by their position in the list, via indexing.
• Dictionary elements are accessed via keys.

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Python Sets
• Sets are used to store multiple items in a single variable.
• Set is one of 4 built-in data types in Python used to store collections of data,
the other 3 are List, Tuple, and Dictionary, all with different qualities and usage.
• A set is a collection which is both unordered and unindexed.
• The items in a set do not have a defined order. Set items can appear in a
different order every time you use them, and cannot be referred to by index or
key.
• Every set element is unique (no duplicates) and must be immutable (cannot be
changed). However, a set itself is mutable. We can add or remove items from
it.
• Sets can also be used to perform mathematical set operations like union,
intersection, symmetric difference, etc.
• The major advantage of using a set, as opposed to a list, is that it has a highly
optimized method for checking whether a specific element is contained in the
set. This is based on a data structure known as a hash table.

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Python Sets continued …

Creating Python Sets
A set is created by placing all the items (elements) inside curly braces { },
separated by comma, or by using the built-in set() function.

It can have any number of items and they may be of different types
(integer, float, tuple, string etc.). But a set cannot have mutable elements
like lists, sets or dictionaries as its elements.
my_set={1,2,3}
print(my_set)

my_set={1.0, “Hello”, (1,2,3)}

print(my_set)

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 MCA-106, Python Programming

Python Sets continued …

Creating an empty set is a bit tricky. Empty curly braces { } will make an
empty dictionary in Python. To make a set without any elements, we use
the set() function without any argument.
my_set=set()

Modifying a set in Python

• Sets are mutable. However, since they are unordered, indexing has no
meaning.
• We cannot access or change an element of a set using indexing or
slicing. Set data type does not support it.
• We can add a single element using the add() method, and multiple
elements using the update() method. The update() method can
take tuples, lists, strings or other sets as its argument. In all cases,
duplicates are avoided.

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Python Sets continued …

Modifying a set in Python
my_set={1,3}
print(my_set)

my_set.add(2)
print(my_set)

my_set.update([2,3,4,5,6])
print(my_set)

my_set.update([2,3],(7,8,9))
print(my_set)

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Python Sets continued …

Removing elements from a set
• A particular item can be removed from a set using the methods
discard() and remove() method
• The only difference between the two is that the discard() function
leaves a set unchanged if the element is not present in the set. On the
other hand, the remove() function will raise an error in such a condition
(if element is not present in the set).
my_set={1,2,3,5,6}
print(my_set)

my_set.discard(4)
print(my_set)
my_set.remove(4)

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 MCA-106, Python Programming

Python Sets continued …

Python Set Operations
• Sets can be used to carry out mathematical set operations like union,
intersection, difference and symmetric difference. We can do this with
operators or methods.
• Let us consider the following two sets for the following operations.
A={1,2,3,4,5}
B={4,5,6,7,8}
Set Union – print(A | B)
Set Intersection - print(A & B)
Set Difference - print(A - B)
Set Symmetric Difference - print(A ^ B)
Set Membership Test – my_set=set(“apple”)
print(‘a’ in my_set)

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Python Sets continued …

Set Membership Test
my_set=set(“apple”)
print(‘a’ in my_set)
print(‘A’ in my_set)
print(‘T’ not in my_set)

Iterating Through a Set

for letter in my_set:
print(letter)

for n in A:
print(n)

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Professor – Unit 1 41

File Handling in Python

• Files are named locations on disk to store related information. They are
used to permanently store data in a non-volatile memory (e.g. hard
disk).
• Python too supports file handling and allows users to handle files i.e.,
to read and write files, along with many other file handling options, to
operate on files.
• Python treats file differently as text or binary and this is important.
• Each line of code includes a sequence of characters and they form text
file. Each line of a file is terminated with a special character, called the
EOL or End of Line characters like comma {,} or newline character. It
ends the current line and tells the interpreter a new one has begun.

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Professor – Unit 1 42

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Prof. U1.14
 MCA-106, Python Programming

File Handling in Python

File Path:
Most of the file systems used today stores files in a tree structure. At the top of the
tree, is one root node. Under the root node, there are other files and folders.

Every file is identified by its path, that begins from the root node or root folder. The
file path is also known as pathname.
1. Relative path
2. Absolute path

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Professor – Unit 1 43

File Handling in Python

Types of File
1. Text files – A stream of characters that can be sequentially processed
by a computer in forwards direction.

In a text file, each line of data ends with a newline character. Each file
ends with a special character called the end-of-file(EOF) marker.

2. Binary files – It may contain any type of data, encoded in binary form.
It includes file such as images, videos, zip files and other executable
programs.

Like text file, binary file also ends with an end-of-file(EOF) marker.

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Professor – Unit 1 44

File Handling in Python

In Python, a file operation takes place in the following order:
• Open a file
• Read or write (perform operation)
• Close the file

We use open () function in Python to open a file in read or write mode.

open ( ) will return a file object.
open() function accepts two arguments, file name and the mode, whether
to read or write. There are three kinds of mode, that Python provides and
how files can be opened:
• “ r “, for reading.
• “ w “, for writing.
• “ a “, for appending.

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Professor – Unit 1 45

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Prof. U1.15
 MCA-106, Python Programming

File Handling in Python

We must keep in mind that the mode argument is not mandatory. If not
passed, then Python will assume it to be “ r ” by default.
f= open(“test.txt”) # opens file in current directory
f= open(“C:/python37/test.txt”) # specifying full path

• The default is reading in text mode. In this mode, we get strings when
reading from the file.

• On the other hand, binary mode “b” returns bytes and this is the mode
to be used when dealing with non-text files like images or executable
files.
f= open(“img.bmp”,’rb+’) # read and write in binary mode

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Professor – Unit 1 46

File Handling in Python

Working of read() mode
f= open("D:/Python Programming/Scripts/test.txt", mode='r')
print(f.read())
print(f.read(5))
Creating a file using write() mode
f= open("D:/Python Programming/Scripts/test.txt", mode=‘w')
f.write("Testing write operation\n")
f.write("This command will add this line in file")
f.close()

• The close() command terminates all the resources in use and frees the
system of this particular program.

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Professor – Unit 1 47

File Handling in Python

Working of append() mode
f= open("D:/Python Programming/Scripts/test.txt", mode=‘a')
f.write(“This command will add this line in file”)

Using read along with with() function

with open("D:/Python Programming/Scripts/test.txt") as file:
data= file.read()
print(data)
type(data)

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Professor – Unit 1 48

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Prof. U1.16
 MCA-106, Python Programming

File Built-in Methods

Python provides following built–in functions, those are
– close()
– read()
– readline()
– write()
– writelines()
– tell()
– seek(offeset [, from])
Python Supports following built-in attributes, those are
– file.name - returns the name of the file which is already opened.
– file.mode - returns the access mode of opened file.
– file.closed - returns true, if the file closed, otherwise false.

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Professor – Unit 1 49

File Handling in Python

split() using file handling
We can also split lines using file handling in Python. This splits the
variable when space is encountered. You can also split using any
characters as we wish.
with open("D:/Python Programming/Scripts/test.txt") as file:
data= file.readlines()
for line in data:
word=line.split()
print(word)
Deleting a file
import os
os.remove("D:/Python Programming/Scripts/test.txt")

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Professor – Unit 1 50

Python Directory
Management
Directories are a way of storing, organizing, and separating the files on a
computer.

The directory that does not have a parent is called a root directory. The
way to reach the file is called the path.

The path contains a combination of directory names, folder names

separated by slashes and colon and this gives the route to a file in the
system.

Python contains several modules that has a number of built-in functions to

manipulate and process data. Python has also provided modules that help
us to interact with the operating system and the files.

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Professor – Unit 1 51

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Prof. U1.17
 MCA-106, Python Programming

Python Directory
Management continues….
os and os.path Module
• The os module is used to handle files and directories in various ways.
It provides provisions to create/rename/delete directories. This allows
even to know the current working directory and change it to another. It
also allows one to copy files from one directory to another. The major
methods used for directory management is explained below.

Creating new directory:

• os.mkdir(name) method to create a new directory.
• The desired name for the new directory is passed as the parameter.
• By default it creates the new directory in the current working directory.
• If the new directory has to be created somewhere else then that path
has to be specified and the path should contain forward slashes
instead of backward ones.
© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Professor – Unit 1 52

Python Directory
Management continues….
Getting Current Working Directory (CWD):
• os.getcwd() can be used.
• It returns a string that represents the path of the current working directory.
• The method does not require any parameters to be passed.
Renaming a directory:
• os.rename() method is used to rename the directory.
• The parameters passed are old_name followed by new_name.
• If a directory already exists with the new_name passed, OSError will be raised
in case of both Unix and Windows.
• If a file already exists with the new_name, in Unix no error arises, the directory
will be renamed. But in Windows the renaming won’t happen and error will be
raised.
• os.renames(‘old_name’,’dest_dir:/new_name’) method works similar
to os.rename() but it moves the renamed file to the specified destination
directory(dest_dir).

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Professor – Unit 1 53

Python Directory
Management continues….
Changing Current Working Directory (CWD):
• Every process in the computer system will have a directory associated
with it, which is known as Current Working Directory(CWD).
• os.chdir() method is used to change it.
• The parameter passed is the path/name of the desired directory to
which one wish to shift.
Listing the files in a directory
• A directory may contain sub-directories and a number of files in it. To
list them, os.listdir() method is used.
• It either takes no parameter or one parameter.
• If no parameter is passed, then the files and sub-directories of the
CWD is listed.
• If files of any other directory other than the CWD is required to be
listed, then that directory’s name/path is passed as parameter.
© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Professor – Unit 1 54

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Prof. U1.18
 MCA-106, Python Programming

Python Directory
Management continues….
Removing a directory
• os.rmdir() method is used to remove/delete a directory.
• The parameter passed is the path to that directory.
• It deletes the directory if and only if it is empty, otherwise raises an
OSError.
To check whether it is a directory:
• Given a directory name or Path, os.path.isdir(path) is used to validate
whether the path is a valid directory or not.
• It returns boolean values only. Returns true if the given path is a valid
directory otherwise false.
To get size of the directory:
• os.path.getsize(path_name) gives the size of the directory in bytes.
• OSError is raised if, invalid path is passed as parameter.

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Professor – Unit 1 55

© Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi-63, by Dr. Saumya, Assistant Prof. U1.19