Simple script to merge multiple text files

[borthouth]

Hi,

I have just started using Python and I am slowly getting into it. I wanted to make a little script to merge all files in a directory into one.

All of these files will be text files.

I know I need to use os.path.walk() to walk through all the files, and if not os.path.isdir(f ilename) with open(filename,' r').read() to read all the files that are not directories.

Can someone give me a clue or a very simple example that I can work with please?

Thanks in advance.

[bvdet]

Hi,

I have just started using Python and I am slowly getting into it. I wanted to make a little script to merge all files in a directory into one.

All of these files will be text files.

I know I need to use os.path.walk() to walk through all the files, and if not os.path.isdir(f ilename) with open(filename,' r').read() to read all the files that are not directories.

Can someone give me a clue or a very simple example that I can work with please?

Thanks in advance.

I think this code will do what you want:

import os
 
def dir_list(dir_name, subdir, *args):
    '''Return a list of file names in directory 'dir_name'
    If 'subdir' is True, recursively access subdirectories under 'dir_name'.
    Additional arguments, if any, are file extensions to add to the list.
    Example usage: fileList = dir_list(r'H:\TEMP', False, 'txt', 'py', 'dat', 'log', 'jpg')
    '''
    fileList = []
    for file in os.listdir(dir_name):
        dirfile = os.path.join(dir_name, file)
        if os.path.isfile(dirfile):
            if len(args) == 0:
                fileList.append(dirfile)
            else:
                if os.path.splitext(dirfile)[1][1:] in args:
                    fileList.append(dirfile)
 
        # recursively access file names in subdirectories
        elif os.path.isdir(dirfile) and subdir:
            # print "Accessing directory:", dirfile
            fileList += dir_list(dirfile, subdir, *args)
    return fileList
 
def combine_files(fileList, fn):
    f = open(fn, 'w')
    for file in fileList:
        print 'Writing file %s' % file
        f.write(open(file).read())
    f.close()
 
if __name__ == '__main__':
    search_dir = "C:/directory"
    fn = "output_file.txt"
    combine_files(dir_list(search_dir, False, 'txt'), fn)

[borthouth]

Thanks , you have helped a lot :)

[ghostdog74]

another way

import os,shutil
f=open("/tmp/fileappend.txt","a")
for r,d,fi in os.walk("/home/me"):
    for files in fi:
        if files.endswith(".txt"):                         
            g=open(os.path.join(r,files))
            shutil.copyfileobj(g,f)
            g.close()
f.close()
 

[borthouth]

I think this code will do what you want:

import os
 
def dir_list(dir_name, subdir, *args):
    '''Return a list of file names in directory 'dir_name'
    If 'subdir' is True, recursively access subdirectories under 'dir_name'.
    Additional arguments, if any, are file extensions to add to the list.
    Example usage: fileList = dir_list(r'H:\TEMP', False, 'txt', 'py', 'dat', 'log', 'jpg')
    '''
    fileList = []
    for file in os.listdir(dir_name):
        dirfile = os.path.join(dir_name, file)
        if os.path.isfile(dirfile):
            if len(args) == 0:
                fileList.append(dirfile)
            else:
                if os.path.splitext(dirfile)[1][1:] in args:
                    fileList.append(dirfile)
 
        # recursively access file names in subdirectories
        elif os.path.isdir(dirfile) and subdir:
            # print "Accessing directory:", dirfile
            fileList += dir_list(dirfile, subdir, *args)
    return fileList
 
def combine_files(fileList, fn):
    f = open(fn, 'w')
    for file in fileList:
        print 'Writing file %s' % file
        f.write(open(file).read())
    f.close()
 
if __name__ == '__main__':
    search_dir = "C:/directory"
    fn = "output_file.txt"
    combine_files(dir_list(search_dir, False, 'txt'), fn)

This seemed to work for a while for me now it comes up with "NameError: name 'False' is not defined"

[bvdet]

This seemed to work for a while for me now it comes up with "NameError: name 'False' is not defined"

>>> bool(0)
False
>>> bool(1)
True
>>> 

'0' and '1' can be substituted for 'False' and 'True' respectively. The question is what happened to 'False' on your system?

[borthouth]

>>> bool(0)
False
>>> bool(1)
True
>>> 

'0' and '1' can be substituted for 'False' and 'True' respectively. The question is what happened to 'False' on your system?

Did a quick reset on my machine and is working now. very strange.