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# 10. File and Directory Access

The modules described in this chapter deal with disk files and directories. For example, there are modules for reading the properties of files, manipulating paths in a portable way, and creating temporary files. The full list of modules in this chapter is:

- 10.1. `os.path` — Common pathname manipulations
- 10.2. `fileinput` — Iterate over lines from multiple input streams
- 10.3. `stat` — Interpreting `stat()` results
- 10.4. `statvfs` — Constants used with `os.statvfs()`
- 10.5. `filecmp` — File and Directory Comparisons
  - 10.5.1. The `dircmp` class
- 10.6. `tempfile` — Generate temporary files and directories
- 10.7. `glob` — Unix style pathname pattern expansion
- 10.8. `fnmatch` — Unix filename pattern matching
- 10.9. `linecache` — Random access to text lines
- 10.10. `shutil` — High-level file operations
  - 10.10.1. Directory and files operations
    - 10.10.1.1. copytree example
  - 10.10.2. Archiving operations
    - 10.10.2.1. Archiving example
- 10.11. `dircache` — Cached directory listings
- 10.12. `macpath` — Mac OS 9 path manipulation functions

See also

Section File Objects

  A description of Python’s built-in file objects.

Module `os`

  Operating system interfaces, including functions to work with files at a lower level than the built-in file object.