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Check if a file exists using Python

Samuel Fernandes 2497 11-May-2015
How do I check if a file exists, using Python, without using a try statement?
python file  python 
Updated on 01-May-2023
Samuel Fernandes

Samuel Fernandes

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2 Answers

Aryan Kumar

Aryan Kumar

01-May-2023

To check if a file exists in Python, you can use the os.path module, which provides a range of functions for working with file paths. Here is an example:

import os.path
filename = "example.txt"
if os.path.isfile(filename):
   print("File exists")
else:
   print("File does not exist")

In this example, we first import the os.path module. Then we define the name of the file we want to check (example.txt in this case). We use the os.path.isfile() function to check if the file exists. This function returns True if the file exists and is a regular file, and False otherwise.

If the file exists, we print the message "File exists". If the file does not exist, we print the message "File does not exist".

Note that this example assumes that the file is in the current working directory of the Python script. If the file is in a different directory, you will need to provide the full path to the file instead of just the filename.

Anonymous User

Anonymous User

11-May-2015
You can also use os.path.isfile

Return True if path is an existing regular file. This follows symbolic links, so both islink() and isfile() can be true for the same path.
import os.path
os.path.isfile(fname) 


You have the os.path.exists function:

import os.path
os.path.exists(file_path)
This returns True for both files and directories.

Use os.path.isfile to test if it's a file specifically

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