Source code:
———
This module provides a portable way of using operating system dependent functionality. If you just want to read or write a file see
, if you want to manipulate paths, see the
module, and if you want to read all the lines in all the files on the command line see the
module. For creating temporary files and directories see the
module, and for high-level file and directory handling see the
module.
Notes on the availability of these functions:
The design of all built-in operating system dependent modules of Python is such that as long as the same functionality is available, it uses the same interface; for example, the function os.stat(path) returns stat information about path in the same format (which happens to have originated with the POSIX interface).
Extensions peculiar to a particular operating system are also available through the
module, but using them is of course a threat to portability.
All functions accepting path or file names accept both bytes and string objects, and result in an object of the same type, if a path or file name is returned.
On VxWorks, os.popen, os.fork, os.execv and os.spawn*p* are not supported.
On WebAssembly platforms wasm32-emscripten and wasm32-wasi, large parts of the
module are not available or behave differently. API related to processes (e.g.
,
), signals (e.g.
,
), and resources (e.g.
) are not available. Others like
and
are emulated or stubs.
Note
All functions in this module raise
(or subclasses thereof) in the case of invalid or inaccessible file names and paths, or other arguments that have the correct type, but are not accepted by the operating system.
exceptionos.error
An alias for the built-in
exception.
os.name
The name of the operating system dependent module imported. The following names have currently been registered: 'posix', 'nt', 'java'.
See also
has a finer granularity.
gives system-dependent version information.
The
module provides detailed checks for the system’s identity.
File Names, Command Line Arguments, and Environment Variables
In Python, file names, command line arguments, and environment variables are represented using the string type. On some systems, decoding these strings to and from bytes is necessary before passing them to the operating system. Python uses the
filesystem encoding and error handler
to perform this conversion (see
).
The
filesystem encoding and error handler
are configured at Python startup by the
function: see
and
members of
.
Changed in version 3.1: On some systems, conversion using the file system encoding may fail. In this case, Python uses the
surrogateescape encoding error handler
, which means that undecodable bytes are replaced by a Unicode character U+DCxx on decoding, and these are again translated to the original byte on encoding.
The
must guarantee to successfully decode all bytes below 128. If the file system encoding fails to provide this guarantee, API functions can raise
.
See also the
.
Python UTF-8 Mode
New in version 3.7: See
for more details.
The Python UTF-8 Mode ignores the
and forces the usage of the UTF-8 encoding:
Use UTF-8 as the
.
returns 'utf-8'.
returns 'utf-8' (the do_setlocale argument has no effect).
,
, and
all use UTF-8 as their text encoding, with the surrogateescape
being enabled for
and
(
continues to use backslashreplace as it does in the default locale-aware mode)
On Unix,
returns 'utf-8' rather than the device encoding.
Note that the standard stream settings in UTF-8 mode can be overridden by
(just as they can be in the default locale-aware mode).
As a consequence of the changes in those lower level APIs, other higher level APIs also exhibit different default behaviours:
Command line arguments, environment variables and filenames are decoded to text using the UTF-8 encoding.
and
use the UTF-8 encoding.
,
, and
use the UTF-8 encoding by default. However, they still use the strict error handler by default so that attempting to open a binary file in text mode is likely to raise an exception rather than producing nonsense data.
The
is enabled if the LC_CTYPE locale is C or POSIX at Python startup (see the
function).
It can be enabled or disabled using the
command line option and the
environment variable.
If the
environment variable is not set at all, then the interpreter defaults to using the current locale settings, unless the current locale is identified as a legacy ASCII-based locale (as described for
), and locale coercion is either disabled or fails. In such legacy locales, the interpreter will default to enabling UTF-8 mode unless explicitly instructed not to do so.
The Python UTF-8 Mode can only be enabled at the Python startup. Its value can be read from
.
See also the
and the
filesystem encoding and error handler
.
See also
Python 3.15 will make
default.
Process Parameters
These functions and data items provide information and operate on the current process and user.
os.ctermid()
Return the filename corresponding to the controlling terminal of the process.
os.environ
A
object where keys and values are strings that represent the process environment. For example, environ['HOME'] is the pathname of your home directory (on some platforms), and is equivalent to getenv("HOME") in C.
This mapping is captured the first time the
module is imported, typically during Python startup as part of processing site.py. Changes to the environment made after this time are not reflected in
, except for changes made by modifying
directly.
This mapping may be used to modify the environment as well as query the environment.
will be called automatically when the mapping is modified.
On Unix, keys and values use
and 'surrogateescape' error handler. Use
if you would like to use a different encoding.
On Windows, the keys are converted to uppercase. This also applies when getting, setting, or deleting an item. For example, environ['monty']='python' maps the key 'MONTY' to the value 'python'.
Note
Calling
directly does not change
, so it’s better to modify
.
Note
On some platforms, including FreeBSD and macOS, setting environ may cause memory leaks. Refer to the system documentation for putenv().
You can delete items in this mapping to unset environment variables.
will be called automatically when an item is deleted from
, and when one of the pop() or clear() methods is called.
Changed in version 3.9: Updated to support
’s merge (|) and update (|=) operators.
os.environb
Bytes version of
: a
object where both keys and values are
objects representing the process environment.
and
are synchronized (modifying
updates
, and vice versa).
is only available if
is True.
New in version 3.2.
Changed in version 3.9: Updated to support
’s merge (|) and update (|=) operators.
os.chdir(path)os.fchdir(fd)os.getcwd()These functions are described in
.
os.fsencode(filename)
Encode
filename to the
filesystem encoding and error handler
; return
unchanged.
is the reverse function.
New in version 3.2.
Changed in version 3.6: Support added to accept objects implementing the
interface.
os.fsdecode(filename)
Decode the
filename from the
filesystem encoding and error handler
; return
unchanged.
is the reverse function.
New in version 3.2.
Changed in version 3.6: Support added to accept objects implementing the
interface.
os.fspath(path)
Return the file system representation of the path.
If
or
is passed in, it is returned unchanged. Otherwise
is called and its value is returned as long as it is a
or
object. In all other cases,
is raised.
New in version 3.6.
classos.PathLike
An
for objects representing a file system path, e.g.
.
New in version 3.6.
abstractmethod__fspath__()
Return the file system path representation of the object.
The method should only return a
or
object, with the preference being for
.
os.getenv(key, default=None)
Return the value of the environment variable key as a string if it exists, or default if it doesn’t. key is a string. Note that since
uses
, the mapping of
is similarly also captured on import, and the function may not reflect future environment changes.
On Unix, keys and values are decoded with
and 'surrogateescape' error handler. Use
if you would like to use a different encoding.
os.getenvb(key, default=None)
Return the value of the environment variable key as bytes if it exists, or default if it doesn’t. key must be bytes. Note that since
uses
, the mapping of
is similarly also captured on import, and the function may not reflect future environment changes.
is only available if
is True.
New in version 3.2.
os.get_exec_path(env=None)
Returns the list of directories that will be searched for a named executable, similar to a shell, when launching a process. env, when specified, should be an environment variable dictionary to lookup the PATH in. By default, when env is None,
is used.
New in version 3.2.
os.getegid()
Return the effective group id of the current process. This corresponds to the “set id” bit on the file being executed in the current process.
os.geteuid()
Return the current process’s effective user id.
os.getgid()
Return the real group id of the current process.
os.getgrouplist(user, group, /)
Return list of group ids that user belongs to. If group is not in the list, it is included; typically, group is specified as the group ID field from the password record for user, because that group ID will otherwise be potentially omitted.
New in version 3.3.
os.getgroups()
Return list of supplemental group ids associated with the current process.
Note
On macOS,
behavior differs somewhat from other Unix platforms. If the Python interpreter was built with a deployment target of 10.5 or earlier,
returns the list of effective group ids associated with the current user process; this list is limited to a system-defined number of entries, typically 16, and may be modified by calls to
if suitably privileged. If built with a deployment target greater than 10.5,
returns the current group access list for the user associated with the effective user id of the process; the group access list may change over the lifetime of the process, it is not affected by calls to
, and its length is not limited to 16. The deployment target value, MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET, can be obtained with
.
os.getlogin()
Return the name of the user logged in on the controlling terminal of the process. For most purposes, it is more useful to use
since the latter checks the environment variables LOGNAME or USERNAME to find out who the user is, and falls back to pwd.getpwuid(os.getuid())[0] to get the login name of the current real user id.
: Unix, Windows, not Emscripten, not WASI.
os.getpgid(pid)
Return the process group id of the process with process id pid. If pid is 0, the process group id of the current process is returned.
os.getpgrp()
Return the id of the current process group.
os.getpid()
Return the current process id.
The function is a stub on Emscripten and WASI, see
for more information.
os.getppid()
Return the parent’s process id. When the parent process has exited, on Unix the id returned is the one of the init process (1), on Windows it is still the same id, which may be already reused by another process.
: Unix, Windows, not Emscripten, not WASI.
Changed in version 3.2: Added support for Windows.
os.getpriority(which, who)
Get program scheduling priority. The value which is one of
,
, or
, and who is interpreted relative to which (a process identifier for
, process group identifier for
, and a user ID for
). A zero value for who denotes (respectively) the calling process, the process group of the calling process, or the real user ID of the calling process.
New in version 3.3.
os.PRIO_PROCESS
os.PRIO_PGRP
os.PRIO_USER
Parameters for the
and
functions.
New in version 3.3.
os.getresuid()
Return a tuple (ruid, euid, suid) denoting the current process’s real, effective, and saved user ids.
New in version 3.2.
os.getresgid()
Return a tuple (rgid, egid, sgid) denoting the current process’s real, effective, and saved group ids.
New in version 3.2.
os.getuid()
Return the current process’s real user id.
os.initgroups(username, gid, /)
Call the system initgroups() to initialize the group access list with all of the groups of which the specified username is a member, plus the specified group id.
New in version 3.2.
os.putenv(key, value, /)
Set the environment variable named key to the string value. Such changes to the environment affect subprocesses started with
,
or
and
.
Assignments to items in
are automatically translated into corresponding calls to
; however, calls to
don’t update
, so it is actually preferable to assign to items of
. This also applies to
and
, which respectively use
and
in their implementations.
Note
On some platforms, including FreeBSD and macOS, setting environ may cause memory leaks. Refer to the system documentation for putenv().
Raises an
os.putenv with arguments key, value.
Changed in version 3.9: The function is now always available.
os.setegid(egid, /)
Set the current process’s effective group id.
os.seteuid(euid, /)
Set the current process’s effective user id.
os.setgid(gid, /)
Set the current process’ group id.
os.setgroups(groups, /)
Set the list of supplemental group ids associated with the current process to groups. groups must be a sequence, and each element must be an integer identifying a group. This operation is typically available only to the superuser.
Note
On macOS, the length of groups may not exceed the system-defined maximum number of effective group ids, typically 16. See the documentation for
for cases where it may not return the same group list set by calling setgroups().
os.setpgrp()
Call the system call setpgrp() or setpgrp(0,0) depending on which version is implemented (if any). See the Unix manual for the semantics.
os.setpgid(pid, pgrp, /)
Call the system call setpgid() to set the process group id of the process with id pid to the process group with id pgrp. See the Unix manual for the semantics.
os.setpriority(which, who, priority)
Set program scheduling priority. The value which is one of
,
, or
, and who is interpreted relative to which (a process identifier for
, process group identifier for
, and a user ID for
). A zero value for who denotes (respectively) the calling process, the process group of the calling process, or the real user ID of the calling process. priority is a value in the range -20 to 19. The default priority is 0; lower priorities cause more favorable scheduling.
New in version 3.3.
os.setregid(rgid, egid, /)
Set the current process’s real and effective group ids.
os.setresgid(rgid, egid, sgid, /)
Set the current process’s real, effective, and saved group ids.
New in version 3.2.
os.setresuid(ruid, euid, suid, /)
Set the current process’s real, effective, and saved user ids.
New in version 3.2.
os.setreuid(ruid, euid, /)
Set the current process’s real and effective user ids.
os.getsid(pid, /)
Call the system call getsid(). See the Unix manual for the semantics.
os.setsid()
Call the system call setsid(). See the Unix manual for the semantics.
os.setuid(uid, /)
Set the current process’s user id.
os.strerror(code, /)
Return the error message corresponding to the error code in code. On platforms where strerror() returns NULL when given an unknown error number,
is raised.
os.supports_bytes_environ
True if the native OS type of the environment is bytes (eg. False on Windows).
New in version 3.2.
os.umask(mask, /)
Set the current numeric umask and return the previous umask.
The function is a stub on Emscripten and WASI, see
for more information.
os.uname()
Returns information identifying the current operating system. The return value is an object with five attributes:
sysname - operating system name
nodename - name of machine on network (implementation-defined)
release - operating system release
version - operating system version
machine - hardware identifier
For backwards compatibility, this object is also iterable, behaving like a five-tuple containing sysname, nodename, release, version, and machine in that order.
Some systems truncate nodename to 8 characters or to the leading component; a better way to get the hostname is
or even socket.gethostbyaddr(socket.gethostname()).
Changed in version 3.3: Return type changed from a tuple to a tuple-like object with named attributes.
os.unsetenv(key, /)
Unset (delete) the environment variable named key. Such changes to the environment affect subprocesses started with
,
or
and
.
Deletion of items in
is automatically translated into a corresponding call to
; however, calls to
don’t update
, so it is actually preferable to delete items of
.
Raises an
os.unsetenv with argument key.
Changed in version 3.9: The function is now always available and is also available on Windows.
File Object Creation
These functions create new
. (See also
for opening file descriptors.)
os.fdopen(fd, *args, **kwargs)
Return an open file object connected to the file descriptor fd. This is an alias of the
built-in function and accepts the same arguments. The only difference is that the first argument of
must always be an integer.
File Descriptor Operations
These functions operate on I/O streams referenced using file descriptors.
File descriptors are small integers corresponding to a file that has been opened by the current process. For example, standard input is usually file descriptor 0, standard output is 1, and standard error is 2. Further files opened by a process will then be assigned 3, 4, 5, and so forth. The name “file descriptor” is slightly deceptive; on Unix platforms, sockets and pipes are also referenced by file descriptors.
The
method can be used to obtain the file descriptor associated with a
when required. Note that using the file descriptor directly will bypass the file object methods, ignoring aspects such as internal buffering of data.
os.close(fd)
Close file descriptor fd.
Note
This function is intended for low-level I/O and must be applied to a file descriptor as returned by
or
. To close a “file object” returned by the built-in function
or by
or
, use its
method.
os.closerange(fd_low, fd_high, /)
Close all file descriptors from fd_low (inclusive) to fd_high (exclusive), ignoring errors. Equivalent to (but much faster than):
forfdinrange(fd_low,fd_high):try:os.close(fd)exceptOSError:passos.copy_file_range(src, dst, count, offset_src=None, offset_dst=None)
Copy count bytes from file descriptor src, starting from offset offset_src, to file descriptor dst, starting from offset offset_dst. If offset_src is None, then src is read from the current position; respectively for offset_dst. The files pointed by src and dst must reside in the same filesystem, otherwise an
is raised with
set to
.
This copy is done without the additional cost of transferring data from the kernel to user space and then back into the kernel. Additionally, some filesystems could implement extra optimizations. The copy is done as if both files are opened as binary.
The return value is the amount of bytes copied. This could be less than the amount requested.
New in version 3.8.
os.device_encoding(fd)
Return a string describing the encoding of the device associated with fd if it is connected to a terminal; else return
.
On Unix, if the
is enabled, return 'UTF-8' rather than the device encoding.
Changed in version 3.10: On Unix, the function now implements the Python UTF-8 Mode.
os.dup(fd, /)
Return a duplicate of file descriptor fd. The new file descriptor is
.
On Windows, when duplicating a standard stream (0: stdin, 1: stdout, 2: stderr), the new file descriptor is
.
Changed in version 3.4: The new file descriptor is now non-inheritable.
os.dup2(fd, fd2, inheritable=True)
Duplicate file descriptor fd to fd2, closing the latter first if necessary. Return fd2. The new file descriptor is
by default or non-inheritable if inheritable is False.
Changed in version 3.4: Add the optional inheritable parameter.
Changed in version 3.7: Return fd2 on success. Previously, None was always returned.
os.fchmod(fd, mode)
Change the mode of the file given by fd to the numeric mode. See the docs for
for possible values of mode. As of Python 3.3, this is equivalent to os.chmod(fd,mode).
Raises an
os.chmod with arguments path, mode, dir_fd.
os.fchown(fd, uid, gid)
Change the owner and group id of the file given by fd to the numeric uid and gid. To leave one of the ids unchanged, set it to -1. See
. As of Python 3.3, this is equivalent to os.chown(fd,uid,gid).
Raises an
os.chown with arguments path, uid, gid, dir_fd.
os.fdatasync(fd)
Force write of file with filedescriptor fd to disk. Does not force update of metadata.
Note
This function is not available on MacOS.
os.fpathconf(fd, name, /)
Return system configuration information relevant to an open file. name specifies the configuration value to retrieve; it may be a string which is the name of a defined system value; these names are specified in a number of standards (POSIX.1, Unix 95, Unix 98, and others). Some platforms define additional names as well. The names known to the host operating system are given in the pathconf_names dictionary. For configuration variables not included in that mapping, passing an integer for name is also accepted.
If name is a string and is not known,
is raised. If a specific value for name is not supported by the host system, even if it is included in pathconf_names, an
is raised with
for the error number.
As of Python 3.3, this is equivalent to os.pathconf(fd,name).
os.fstat(fd)
Get the status of the file descriptor fd. Return a
object.
As of Python 3.3, this is equivalent to os.stat(fd).
See also
The
function.
os.fstatvfs(fd, /)
Return information about the filesystem containing the file associated with file descriptor fd, like
. As of Python 3.3, this is equivalent to os.statvfs(fd).
os.fsync(fd)
Force write of file with filedescriptor fd to disk. On Unix, this calls the native fsync() function; on Windows, the MS _commit() function.
If you’re starting with a buffered Python
f, first do f.flush(), and then do os.fsync(f.fileno()), to ensure that all internal buffers associated with f are written to disk.
os.ftruncate(fd, length, /)
Truncate the file corresponding to file descriptor fd, so that it is at most length bytes in size. As of Python 3.3, this is equivalent to os.truncate(fd,length).
Raises an
os.truncate with arguments fd, length.
Changed in version 3.5: Added support for Windows
os.get_blocking(fd, /)
Get the blocking mode of the file descriptor: False if the
flag is set, True if the flag is cleared.
See also
and
.
New in version 3.5.
os.isatty(fd, /)
Return True if the file descriptor fd is open and connected to a tty(-like) device, else False.
os.lockf(fd, cmd, len, /)
Apply, test or remove a POSIX lock on an open file descriptor. fd is an open file descriptor. cmd specifies the command to use - one of
,
,
or
. len specifies the section of the file to lock.
Raises an
os.lockf with arguments fd, cmd, len.
New in version 3.3.
os.F_LOCK
os.F_TLOCK
os.F_ULOCK
os.F_TEST
Flags that specify what action
will take.
New in version 3.3.
os.login_tty(fd, /)
Prepare the tty of which fd is a file descriptor for a new login session. Make the calling process a session leader; make the tty the controlling tty, the stdin, the stdout, and the stderr of the calling process; close fd.
New in version 3.11.
os.lseek(fd, pos, whence, /)
Set the current position of file descriptor fd to position pos, modified by whence, and return the new position in bytes relative to the start of the file. Valid values for whence are:
or 0 – set pos relative to the beginning of the file
or 1 – set pos relative to the current file position
or 2 – set pos relative to the end of the file
– set pos to the next data location, relative to pos
– set pos to the next data hole, relative to pos
Changed in version 3.3: Add support for SEEK_HOLE and SEEK_DATA.
os.SEEK_SET
os.SEEK_CUR
os.SEEK_END
Parameters to the
function and the
method on
, for whence to adjust the file position indicator.
Adjust the file position relative to the beginning of the file.
Adjust the file position relative to the current file position.
Adjust the file position relative to the end of the file.
Their values are 0, 1, and 2, respectively.
os.SEEK_HOLE
os.SEEK_DATA
Parameters to the
function and the
method on
, for seeking file data and holes on sparsely allocated files.
SEEK_DATAAdjust the file offset to the next location containing data, relative to the seek position.
SEEK_HOLEAdjust the file offset to the next location containing a hole, relative to the seek position. A hole is defined as a sequence of zeros.
Note
These operations only make sense for filesystems that support them.
New in version 3.3.
os.open(path, flags, mode=0o777, *, dir_fd=None)
Open the file path and set various flags according to flags and possibly its mode according to mode. When computing mode, the current umask value is first masked out. Return the file descriptor for the newly opened file. The new file descriptor is
.
For a description of the flag and mode values, see the C run-time documentation; flag constants (like
and
) are defined in the
module. In particular, on Windows adding
is needed to open files in binary mode.
This function can support
paths relative to directory descriptors
with the dir_fd parameter.
Raises an
open with arguments path, mode, flags.
Changed in version 3.4: The new file descriptor is now non-inheritable.
Note
This function is intended for low-level I/O. For normal usage, use the built-in function
, which returns a
with read() and write() methods (and many more). To wrap a file descriptor in a file object, use
.
Changed in version 3.3: Added the dir_fd parameter.
Changed in version 3.5: If the system call is interrupted and the signal handler does not raise an exception, the function now retries the system call instead of raising an
exception (see
for the rationale).
The following constants are options for the flags parameter to the
function. They can be combined using the bitwise OR operator |. Some of them are not available on all platforms. For descriptions of their availability and use, consult the
manual page on Unix or
on Windows.
os.O_RDONLY
os.O_WRONLY
os.O_RDWR
os.O_APPEND
os.O_CREAT
os.O_EXCL
os.O_TRUNC
The above constants are available on Unix and Windows.
os.O_DSYNC
os.O_RSYNC
os.O_SYNC
os.O_NDELAY
os.O_NONBLOCK
os.O_NOCTTY
os.O_CLOEXEC
The above constants are only available on Unix.
Changed in version 3.3: Add
constant.
os.O_BINARY
os.O_NOINHERIT
os.O_SHORT_LIVED
os.O_TEMPORARY
os.O_RANDOM
os.O_SEQUENTIAL
os.O_TEXT
The above constants are only available on Windows.
os.O_EVTONLY
os.O_FSYNC
os.O_SYMLINK
os.O_NOFOLLOW_ANY
The above constants are only available on macOS.
Changed in version 3.10: Add
,
,
and
constants.
os.O_ASYNC
os.O_DIRECT
os.O_DIRECTORY
os.O_NOFOLLOW
os.O_NOATIME
os.O_PATH
os.O_TMPFILE
os.O_SHLOCK
os.O_EXLOCK
The above constants are extensions and not present if they are not defined by the C library.
Changed in version 3.4: Add
on systems that support it. Add
, only available on Linux Kernel 3.11 or newer.
os.openpty()
Open a new pseudo-terminal pair. Return a pair of file descriptors (master,slave) for the pty and the tty, respectively. The new file descriptors are
. For a (slightly) more portable approach, use the
module.
Changed in version 3.4: The new file descriptors are now non-inheritable.
os.pipe()
Create a pipe. Return a pair of file descriptors (r,w) usable for reading and writing, respectively. The new file descriptor is
.
Changed in version 3.4: The new file descriptors are now non-inheritable.
os.pipe2(flags, /)
Create a pipe with flags set atomically. flags can be constructed by ORing together one or more of these values:
,
. Return a pair of file descriptors (r,w) usable for reading and writing, respectively.
New in version 3.3.
os.posix_fallocate(fd, offset, len, /)
Ensures that enough disk space is allocated for the file specified by fd starting from offset and continuing for len bytes.
New in version 3.3.
os.posix_fadvise(fd, offset, len, advice, /)
Announces an intention to access data in a specific pattern thus allowing the kernel to make optimizations. The advice applies to the region of the file specified by fd starting at offset and continuing for len bytes. advice is one of
,
,
,
,
or
.
New in version 3.3.
os.POSIX_FADV_NORMAL
os.POSIX_FADV_SEQUENTIAL
os.POSIX_FADV_RANDOM
os.POSIX_FADV_NOREUSE
os.POSIX_FADV_WILLNEED
os.POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED
Flags that can be used in advice in
that specify the access pattern that is likely to be used.
New in version 3.3.
os.pread(fd, n, offset, /)
Read at most n bytes from file descriptor fd at a position of offset, leaving the file offset unchanged.
Return a bytestring containing the bytes read. If the end of the file referred to by fd has been reached, an empty bytes object is returned.
New in version 3.3.
os.preadv(fd, buffers, offset, flags=0, /)
Read from a file descriptor fd at a position of offset into mutable
buffers, leaving the file offset unchanged. Transfer data into each buffer until it is full and then move on to the next buffer in the sequence to hold the rest of the data.
The flags argument contains a bitwise OR of zero or more of the following flags:
Return the total number of bytes actually read which can be less than the total capacity of all the objects.
The operating system may set a limit (
value 'SC_IOV_MAX') on the number of buffers that can be used.
Combine the functionality of
and
.
: Linux >= 2.6.30, FreeBSD >= 6.0, OpenBSD >= 2.7, AIX >= 7.1.
Using flags requires Linux >= 4.6.
New in version 3.7.
os.RWF_NOWAIT
Do not wait for data which is not immediately available. If this flag is specified, the system call will return instantly if it would have to read data from the backing storage or wait for a lock.
If some data was successfully read, it will return the number of bytes read. If no bytes were read, it will return -1 and set errno to
.
New in version 3.7.
os.RWF_HIPRI
High priority read/write. Allows block-based filesystems to use polling of the device, which provides lower latency, but may use additional resources.
Currently, on Linux, this feature is usable only on a file descriptor opened using the
flag.
New in version 3.7.
os.pwrite(fd, str, offset, /)
Write the bytestring in str to file descriptor fd at position of offset, leaving the file offset unchanged.
Return the number of bytes actually written.
New in version 3.3.
os.pwritev(fd, buffers, offset, flags=0, /)
Write the buffers contents to file descriptor fd at a offset offset, leaving the file offset unchanged. buffers must be a sequence of
. Buffers are processed in array order. Entire contents of the first buffer is written before proceeding to the second, and so on.
The flags argument contains a bitwise OR of zero or more of the following flags:
Return the total number of bytes actually written.
The operating system may set a limit (
value 'SC_IOV_MAX') on the number of buffers that can be used.
Combine the functionality of
and
.
: Linux >= 2.6.30, FreeBSD >= 6.0, OpenBSD >= 2.7, AIX >= 7.1.
Using flags requires Linux >= 4.6.
New in version 3.7.
os.RWF_DSYNC
Provide a per-write equivalent of the
flag. This flag effect applies only to the data range written by the system call.
New in version 3.7.
os.RWF_SYNC
Provide a per-write equivalent of the
flag. This flag effect applies only to the data range written by the system call.
New in version 3.7.
os.RWF_APPEND
Provide a per-write equivalent of the
flag. This flag is meaningful only for
, and its effect applies only to the data range written by the system call. The offset argument does not affect the write operation; the data is always appended to the end of the file. However, if the offset argument is -1, the current file offset is updated.
New in version 3.10.
os.read(fd, n, /)
Read at most n bytes from file descriptor fd.
Return a bytestring containing the bytes read. If the end of the file referred to by fd has been reached, an empty bytes object is returned.
Note
This function is intended for low-level I/O and must be applied to a file descriptor as returned by
or
. To read a “file object” returned by the built-in function
or by
or
, or
, use its read() or readline() methods.
Changed in version 3.5: If the system call is interrupted and the signal handler does not raise an exception, the function now retries the system call instead of raising an
exception (see
for the rationale).
os.sendfile(out_fd, in_fd, offset, count)
os.sendfile(out_fd, in_fd, offset, count, headers=(), trailers=(), flags=0)Copy count bytes from file descriptor in_fd to file descriptor out_fd starting at offset. Return the number of bytes sent. When EOF is reached return 0.
The first function notation is supported by all platforms that define
.
On Linux, if offset is given as None, the bytes are read from the current position of in_fd and the position of in_fd is updated.
The second case may be used on macOS and FreeBSD where headers and trailers are arbitrary sequences of buffers that are written before and after the data from in_fd is written. It returns the same as the first case.
On macOS and FreeBSD, a value of 0 for count specifies to send until the end of in_fd is reached.
All platforms support sockets as out_fd file descriptor, and some platforms allow other types (e.g. regular file, pipe) as well.
Cross-platform applications should not use headers, trailers and flags arguments.
New in version 3.3.
Changed in version 3.9: Parameters out and in was renamed to out_fd and in_fd.
os.SF_NODISKIO
os.SF_MNOWAIT
os.SF_SYNC
Parameters to the
function, if the implementation supports them.
New in version 3.3.
os.SF_NOCACHE
Parameter to the
function, if the implementation supports it. The data won’t be cached in the virtual memory and will be freed afterwards.
New in version 3.11.
os.set_blocking(fd, blocking, /)
Set the blocking mode of the specified file descriptor. Set the
flag if blocking is False, clear the flag otherwise.
See also
and
.
New in version 3.5.
os.splice(src, dst, count, offset_src=None, offset_dst=None)
Transfer count bytes from file descriptor src, starting from offset offset_src, to file descriptor dst, starting from offset offset_dst. At least one of the file descriptors must refer to a pipe. If offset_src is None, then src is read from the current position; respectively for offset_dst. The offset associated to the file descriptor that refers to a pipe must be None. The files pointed by src and dst must reside in the same filesystem, otherwise an
is raised with
set to
.
This copy is done without the additional cost of transferring data from the kernel to user space and then back into the kernel. Additionally, some filesystems could implement extra optimizations. The copy is done as if both files are opened as binary.
Upon successful completion, returns the number of bytes spliced to or from the pipe. A return value of 0 means end of input. If src refers to a pipe, then this means that there was no data to transfer, and it would not make sense to block because there are no writers connected to the write end of the pipe.
New in version 3.10.
os.SPLICE_F_MOVE
os.SPLICE_F_NONBLOCK
os.SPLICE_F_MORE
New in version 3.10.
os.readv(fd, buffers, /)
Read from a file descriptor fd into a number of mutable
buffers. Transfer data into each buffer until it is full and then move on to the next buffer in the sequence to hold the rest of the data.
Return the total number of bytes actually read which can be less than the total capacity of all the objects.
The operating system may set a limit (
value 'SC_IOV_MAX') on the number of buffers that can be used.
New in version 3.3.
os.tcgetpgrp(fd, /)
Return the process group associated with the terminal given by fd (an open file descriptor as returned by
).
os.tcsetpgrp(fd, pg, /)
Set the process group associated with the terminal given by fd (an open file descriptor as returned by
) to pg.
os.ttyname(fd, /)
Return a string which specifies the terminal device associated with file descriptor fd. If fd is not associated with a terminal device, an exception is raised.
os.write(fd, str, /)
Write the bytestring in str to file descriptor fd.
Return the number of bytes actually written.
Note
This function is intended for low-level I/O and must be applied to a file descriptor as returned by
or
. To write a “file object” returned by the built-in function
or by
or
, or
or
, use its write() method.
Changed in version 3.5: If the system call is interrupted and the signal handler does not raise an exception, the function now retries the system call instead of raising an
exception (see
for the rationale).
os.writev(fd, buffers, /)
Write the contents of buffers to file descriptor fd. buffers must be a sequence of
. Buffers are processed in array order. Entire contents of the first buffer is written before proceeding to the second, and so on.
Returns the total number of bytes actually written.
The operating system may set a limit (
value 'SC_IOV_MAX') on the number of buffers that can be used.
New in version 3.3.
Querying the size of a terminal
New in version 3.3.
os.get_terminal_size(fd=STDOUT_FILENO, /)
Return the size of the terminal window as (columns,lines), tuple of type
.
The optional argument fd (default STDOUT_FILENO, or standard output) specifies which file descriptor should be queried.
If the file descriptor is not connected to a terminal, an
is raised.
is the high-level function which should normally be used, os.get_terminal_size is the low-level implementation.
classos.terminal_size
A subclass of tuple, holding (columns,lines) of the terminal window size.
columns
Width of the terminal window in characters.
lines
Height of the terminal window in characters.
Inheritance of File Descriptors
New in version 3.4.
A file descriptor has an “inheritable” flag which indicates if the file descriptor can be inherited by child processes. Since Python 3.4, file descriptors created by Python are non-inheritable by default.
On UNIX, non-inheritable file descriptors are closed in child processes at the execution of a new program, other file descriptors are inherited.
On Windows, non-inheritable handles and file descriptors are closed in child processes, except for standard streams (file descriptors 0, 1 and 2: stdin, stdout and stderr), which are always inherited. Using
functions, all inheritable handles and all inheritable file descriptors are inherited. Using the
module, all file descriptors except standard streams are closed, and inheritable handles are only inherited if the close_fds parameter is False.
On WebAssembly platforms wasm32-emscripten and wasm32-wasi, the file descriptor cannot be modified.
os.get_inheritable(fd, /)
Get the “inheritable” flag of the specified file descriptor (a boolean).
os.set_inheritable(fd, inheritable, /)
Set the “inheritable” flag of the specified file descriptor.
os.get_handle_inheritable(handle, /)
Get the “inheritable” flag of the specified handle (a boolean).
os.set_handle_inheritable(handle, inheritable, /)
Set the “inheritable” flag of the specified handle.
Files and Directories
On some Unix platforms, many of these functions support one or more of these features:
specifying a file descriptor: Normally the path argument provided to functions in the
module must be a string specifying a file path. However, some functions now alternatively accept an open file descriptor for their path argument. The function will then operate on the file referred to by the descriptor. (For POSIX systems, Python will call the variant of the function prefixed with f (e.g. call fchdir instead of chdir).)
You can check whether or not path can be specified as a file descriptor for a particular function on your platform using
. If this functionality is unavailable, using it will raise a
.
If the function also supports dir_fd or follow_symlinks arguments, it’s an error to specify one of those when supplying path as a file descriptor.
paths relative to directory descriptors: If dir_fd is not None, it should be a file descriptor referring to a directory, and the path to operate on should be relative; path will then be relative to that directory. If the path is absolute, dir_fd is ignored. (For POSIX systems, Python will call the variant of the function with an at suffix and possibly prefixed with f (e.g. call faccessat instead of access).
You can check whether or not dir_fd is supported for a particular function on your platform using
. If it’s unavailable, using it will raise a
.
not following symlinks: If follow_symlinks is False, and the last element of the path to operate on is a symbolic link, the function will operate on the symbolic link itself rather than the file pointed to by the link. (For POSIX systems, Python will call the l... variant of the function.)
You can check whether or not follow_symlinks is supported for a particular function on your platform using
. If it’s unavailable, using it will raise a
.
os.access(path, mode, *, dir_fd=None, effective_ids=False, follow_symlinks=True)
Use the real uid/gid to test for access to path. Note that most operations will use the effective uid/gid, therefore this routine can be used in a suid/sgid environment to test if the invoking user has the specified access to path. mode should be
to test the existence of path, or it can be the inclusive OR of one or more of
,
, and
to test permissions. Return
if access is allowed,
if not. See the Unix man page
for more information.
This function can support specifying
paths relative to directory descriptors
and
.
If effective_ids is True,
will perform its access checks using the effective uid/gid instead of the real uid/gid. effective_ids may not be supported on your platform; you can check whether or not it is available using
. If it is unavailable, using it will raise a
.
Note
Using
to check if a user is authorized to e.g. open a file before actually doing so using
creates a security hole, because the user might exploit the short time interval between checking and opening the file to manipulate it. It’s preferable to use
techniques. For example:
ifos.access("myfile",os.R_OK):withopen("myfile")asfp:returnfp.read()return"some default data"is better written as:
try:fp=open("myfile")exceptPermissionError:return"some default data"else:withfp:returnfp.read()Note
I/O operations may fail even when
indicates that they would succeed, particularly for operations on network filesystems which may have permissions semantics beyond the usual POSIX permission-bit model.
Changed in version 3.3: Added the dir_fd, effective_ids, and follow_symlinks parameters.
os.F_OK
os.R_OK
os.W_OK
os.X_OK
Values to pass as the mode parameter of
to test the existence, readability, writability and executability of path, respectively.
os.chdir(path)
Change the current working directory to path.
This function can support
. The descriptor must refer to an opened directory, not an open file.
This function can raise
and subclasses such as
,
, and
.
Raises an
os.chdir with argument path.
Changed in version 3.3: Added support for specifying path as a file descriptor on some platforms.
os.chflags(path, flags, *, follow_symlinks=True)
Set the flags of path to the numeric flags. flags may take a combination (bitwise OR) of the following values (as defined in the
module):
This function can support
.
Raises an
os.chflags with arguments path, flags.
Changed in version 3.3: Added the follow_symlinks parameter.
os.chmod(path, mode, *, dir_fd=None, follow_symlinks=True)
Change the mode of path to the numeric mode. mode may take one of the following values (as defined in the
module) or bitwise ORed combinations of them:
This function can support
,
paths relative to directory descriptors
and
.
Note
Although Windows supports
, you can only set the file’s read-only flag with it (via the stat.S_IWRITE and stat.S_IREAD constants or a corresponding integer value). All other bits are ignored.
The function is limited on Emscripten and WASI, see
for more information.
Raises an
os.chmod with arguments path, mode, dir_fd.
New in version 3.3: Added support for specifying path as an open file descriptor, and the dir_fd and follow_symlinks arguments.
os.chown(path, uid, gid, *, dir_fd=None, follow_symlinks=True)
Change the owner and group id of path to the numeric uid and gid. To leave one of the ids unchanged, set it to -1.
This function can support
,
paths relative to directory descriptors
and
.
See
for a higher-level function that accepts names in addition to numeric ids.
Raises an
os.chown with arguments path, uid, gid, dir_fd.
New in version 3.3: Added support for specifying path as an open file descriptor, and the dir_fd and follow_symlinks arguments.
os.chroot(path)
Change the root directory of the current process to path.
os.fchdir(fd)
Change the current working directory to the directory represented by the file descriptor fd. The descriptor must refer to an opened directory, not an open file. As of Python 3.3, this is equivalent to os.chdir(fd).
Raises an
os.chdir with argument path.
os.getcwd()
Return a string representing the current working directory.
os.getcwdb()
Return a bytestring representing the current working directory.
Changed in version 3.8: The function now uses the UTF-8 encoding on Windows, rather than the ANSI code page: see
for the rationale. The function is no longer deprecated on Windows.
os.lchflags(path, flags)
Set the flags of path to the numeric flags, like
, but do not follow symbolic links. As of Python 3.3, this is equivalent to os.chflags(path,flags,follow_symlinks=False).
Raises an
os.chflags with arguments path, flags.
os.lchmod(path, mode)
Change the mode of path to the numeric mode. If path is a symlink, this affects the symlink rather than the target. See the docs for
for possible values of mode. As of Python 3.3, this is equivalent to os.chmod(path,mode,follow_symlinks=False).
lchmod() is not part of POSIX, but Unix implementations may have it if changing the mode of symbolic links is supported.
Raises an
os.chmod with arguments path, mode, dir_fd.
: Unix, not Linux, FreeBSD >= 1.3, NetBSD >= 1.3, not OpenBSD
os.lchown(path, uid, gid)
Change the owner and group id of path to the numeric uid and gid. This function will not follow symbolic links. As of Python 3.3, this is equivalent to os.chown(path,uid,gid,follow_symlinks=False).
Raises an
os.chown with arguments path, uid, gid, dir_fd.
os.link(src, dst, *, src_dir_fd=None, dst_dir_fd=None, follow_symlinks=True)
Create a hard link pointing to src named dst.
This function can support specifying src_dir_fd and/or dst_dir_fd to supply
paths relative to directory descriptors
, and
.
Raises an
os.link with arguments src, dst, src_dir_fd, dst_dir_fd.
Changed in version 3.2: Added Windows support.
Changed in version 3.3: Added the src_dir_fd, dst_dir_fd, and follow_symlinks parameters.
Changed in version 3.6: Accepts a
for src and dst.
os.listdir(path='.')
Return a list containing the names of the entries in the directory given by path. The list is in arbitrary order, and does not include the special entries '.' and '..' even if they are present in the directory. If a file is removed from or added to the directory during the call of this function, whether a name for that file be included is unspecified.
path may be a
. If path is of type bytes (directly or indirectly through the
interface), the filenames returned will also be of type bytes; in all other circumstances, they will be of type str.
This function can also support
; the file descriptor must refer to a directory.
Raises an
os.listdir with argument path.
Note
To encode str filenames to bytes, use
.
See also
The
function returns directory entries along with file attribute information, giving better performance for many common use cases.
Changed in version 3.2: The path parameter became optional.
New in version 3.3: Added support for specifying path as an open file descriptor.
os.lstat(path, *, dir_fd=None)
Perform the equivalent of an lstat() system call on the given path. Similar to
, but does not follow symbolic links. Return a
object.
On platforms that do not support symbolic links, this is an alias for
.
As of Python 3.3, this is equivalent to os.stat(path,dir_fd=dir_fd,follow_symlinks=False).
This function can also support
paths relative to directory descriptors
.
See also
The
function.
Changed in version 3.2: Added support for Windows 6.0 (Vista) symbolic links.
Changed in version 3.3: Added the dir_fd parameter.
Changed in version 3.8: On Windows, now opens reparse points that represent another path (name surrogates), including symbolic links and directory junctions. Other kinds of reparse points are resolved by the operating system as for
.
os.mkdir(path, mode=0o777, *, dir_fd=None)
Create a directory named path with numeric mode mode.
If the directory already exists,
is raised. If a parent directory in the path does not exist,
is raised.
On some systems, mode is ignored. Where it is used, the current umask value is first masked out. If bits other than the last 9 (i.e. the last 3 digits of the octal representation of the mode) are set, their meaning is platform-dependent. On some platforms, they are ignored and you should call
explicitly to set them.
On Windows, a mode of 0o700 is specifically handled to apply access control to the new directory such that only the current user and administrators have access. Other values of mode are ignored.
This function can also support
paths relative to directory descriptors
.
It is also possible to create temporary directories; see the
module’s
function.
Raises an
os.mkdir with arguments path, mode, dir_fd.
Changed in version 3.3: Added the dir_fd parameter.
Changed in version 3.11.10: Windows now handles a mode of 0o700.
os.makedirs(name, mode=0o777, exist_ok=False)
Recursive directory creation function. Like
, but makes all intermediate-level directories needed to contain the leaf directory.
The mode parameter is passed to
for creating the leaf directory; see
for how it is interpreted. To set the file permission bits of any newly created parent directories you can set the umask before invoking
. The file permission bits of existing parent directories are not changed.
If exist_ok is False (the default), a
is raised if the target directory already exists.
Note
will become confused if the path elements to create include
(eg. “..” on UNIX systems).
This function handles UNC paths correctly.
Raises an
os.mkdir with arguments path, mode, dir_fd.
Changed in version 3.2: Added the exist_ok parameter.
Changed in version 3.4.1: Before Python 3.4.1, if exist_ok was True and the directory existed,
would still raise an error if mode did not match the mode of the existing directory. Since this behavior was impossible to implement safely, it was removed in Python 3.4.1. See
.
Changed in version 3.7: The mode argument no longer affects the file permission bits of newly created intermediate-level directories.
os.mkfifo(path, mode=0o666, *, dir_fd=None)
Create a FIFO (a named pipe) named path with numeric mode mode. The current umask value is first masked out from the mode.
This function can also support
paths relative to directory descriptors
.
FIFOs are pipes that can be accessed like regular files. FIFOs exist until they are deleted (for example with
). Generally, FIFOs are used as rendezvous between “client” and “server” type processes: the server opens the FIFO for reading, and the client opens it for writing. Note that
doesn’t open the FIFO — it just creates the rendezvous point.
Changed in version 3.3: Added the dir_fd parameter.
os.mknod(path, mode=0o600, device=0, *, dir_fd=None)
Create a filesystem node (file, device special file or named pipe) named path. mode specifies both the permissions to use and the type of node to be created, being combined (bitwise OR) with one of stat.S_IFREG, stat.S_IFCHR, stat.S_IFBLK, and stat.S_IFIFO (those constants are available in
). For stat.S_IFCHR and stat.S_IFBLK, device defines the newly created device special file (probably using
), otherwise it is ignored.
This function can also support
paths relative to directory descriptors
.
Changed in version 3.3: Added the dir_fd parameter.
os.major(device, /)
Extract the device major number from a raw device number (usually the st_dev or st_rdev field from stat).
os.minor(device, /)
Extract the device minor number from a raw device number (usually the st_dev or st_rdev field from stat).
os.makedev(major, minor, /)
Compose a raw device number from the major and minor device numbers.
os.pathconf(path, name)
Return system configuration information relevant to a named file. name specifies the configuration value to retrieve; it may be a string which is the name of a defined system value; these names are specified in a number of standards (POSIX.1, Unix 95, Unix 98, and others). Some platforms define additional names as well. The names known to the host operating system are given in the pathconf_names dictionary. For configuration variables not included in that mapping, passing an integer for name is also accepted.
If name is a string and is not known,
is raised. If a specific value for name is not supported by the host system, even if it is included in pathconf_names, an
is raised with
for the error number.
This function can support
.
os.pathconf_names
Dictionary mapping names accepted by
and
to the integer values defined for those names by the host operating system. This can be used to determine the set of names known to the system.
os.readlink(path, *, dir_fd=None)
Return a string representing the path to which the symbolic link points. The result may be either an absolute or relative pathname; if it is relative, it may be converted to an absolute pathname using os.path.join(os.path.dirname(path),result).
If the path is a string object (directly or indirectly through a
interface), the result will also be a string object, and the call may raise a UnicodeDecodeError. If the path is a bytes object (direct or indirectly), the result will be a bytes object.
This function can also support
paths relative to directory descriptors
.
When trying to resolve a path that may contain links, use
to properly handle recursion and platform differences.
Changed in version 3.2: Added support for Windows 6.0 (Vista) symbolic links.
Changed in version 3.3: Added the dir_fd parameter.
Changed in version 3.8: Accepts a
and a bytes object on Windows.
Added support for directory junctions, and changed to return the substitution path (which typically includes \\?\ prefix) rather than the optional “print name” field that was previously returned.
os.remove(path, *, dir_fd=None)
Remove (delete) the file path. If path is a directory, an
is raised. Use
to remove directories. If the file does not exist, a
is raised.
This function can support
paths relative to directory descriptors
.
On Windows, attempting to remove a file that is in use causes an exception to be raised; on Unix, the directory entry is removed but the storage allocated to the file is not made available until the original file is no longer in use.
This function is semantically identical to
.
Raises an
os.remove with arguments path, dir_fd.
Changed in version 3.3: Added the dir_fd parameter.
os.removedirs(name)
Remove directories recursively. Works like
except that, if the leaf directory is successfully removed,
tries to successively remove every parent directory mentioned in path until an error is raised (which is ignored, because it generally means that a parent directory is not empty). For example, os.removedirs('foo/bar/baz') will first remove the directory 'foo/bar/baz', and then remove 'foo/bar' and 'foo' if they are empty. Raises
if the leaf directory could not be successfully removed.
Raises an
os.remove with arguments path, dir_fd.
os.rename(src, dst, *, src_dir_fd=None, dst_dir_fd=None)
Rename the file or directory src to dst. If dst exists, the operation will fail with an
subclass in a number of cases:
On Windows, if dst exists a
is always raised. The operation may fail if src and dst are on different filesystems. Use
to support moves to a different filesystem.
On Unix, if src is a file and dst is a directory or vice-versa, an
or a
will be raised respectively. If both are directories and dst is empty, dst will be silently replaced. If dst is a non-empty directory, an
is raised. If both are files, dst will be replaced silently if the user has permission. The operation may fail on some Unix flavors if src and dst are on different filesystems. If successful, the renaming will be an atomic operation (this is a POSIX requirement).
This function can support specifying src_dir_fd and/or dst_dir_fd to supply
paths relative to directory descriptors
.
If you want cross-platform overwriting of the destination, use
.
Raises an
os.rename with arguments src, dst, src_dir_fd, dst_dir_fd.
Changed in version 3.3: Added the src_dir_fd and dst_dir_fd parameters.
Changed in version 3.6: Accepts a
for src and dst.
os.renames(old, new)
Recursive directory or file renaming function. Works like
, except creation of any intermediate directories needed to make the new pathname good is attempted first. After the rename, directories corresponding to rightmost path segments of the old name will be pruned away using
.
Note
This function can fail with the new directory structure made if you lack permissions needed to remove the leaf directory or file.
Raises an
os.rename with arguments src, dst, src_dir_fd, dst_dir_fd.
Changed in version 3.6: Accepts a
for old and new.
os.replace(src, dst, *, src_dir_fd=None, dst_dir_fd=None)
Rename the file or directory src to dst. If dst is a non-empty directory,
will be raised. If dst exists and is a file, it will be replaced silently if the user has permission. The operation may fail if src and dst are on different filesystems. If successful, the renaming will be an atomic operation (this is a POSIX requirement).
This function can support specifying src_dir_fd and/or dst_dir_fd to supply
paths relative to directory descriptors
.
Raises an
os.rename with arguments src, dst, src_dir_fd, dst_dir_fd.
New in version 3.3.
Changed in version 3.6: Accepts a
for src and dst.
os.rmdir(path, *, dir_fd=None)
Remove (delete) the directory path. If the directory does not exist or is not empty, a
or an
is raised respectively. In order to remove whole directory trees,
can be used.
This function can support
paths relative to directory descriptors
.
Raises an
os.rmdir with arguments path, dir_fd.
Changed in version 3.3: Added the dir_fd parameter.
os.scandir(path='.')
Return an iterator of
objects corresponding to the entries in the directory given by path. The entries are yielded in arbitrary order, and the special entries '.' and '..' are not included. If a file is removed from or added to the directory after creating the iterator, whether an entry for that file be included is unspecified.
Using
instead of
can significantly increase the performance of code that also needs file type or file attribute information, because
objects expose this information if the operating system provides it when scanning a directory. All
methods may perform a system call, but
and
usually only require a system call for symbolic links;
always requires a system call on Unix but only requires one for symbolic links on Windows.
path may be a
. If path is of type bytes (directly or indirectly through the
interface), the type of the
and
attributes of each
will be bytes; in all other circumstances, they will be of type str.
This function can also support
; the file descriptor must refer to a directory.
Raises an
os.scandir with argument path.
The
iterator supports the
protocol and has the following method:
scandir.close()
Close the iterator and free acquired resources.
This is called automatically when the iterator is exhausted or garbage collected, or when an error happens during iterating. However it is advisable to call it explicitly or use the
statement.
New in version 3.6.
The following example shows a simple use of
to display all the files (excluding directories) in the given path that don’t start with '.'. The entry.is_file() call will generally not make an additional system call:
withos.scandir(path)asit:forentryinit:ifnotentry.name.startswith('.')andentry.is_file():print(entry.name)New in version 3.5.
Changed in version 3.6: Added support for the
protocol and the
method. If a
iterator is neither exhausted nor explicitly closed a
will be emitted in its destructor.
The function accepts a
.
Changed in version 3.7: Added support for
on Unix.
classos.DirEntry
Object yielded by
to expose the file path and other file attributes of a directory entry.
will provide as much of this information as possible without making additional system calls. When a stat() or lstat() system call is made, the os.DirEntry object will cache the result.
os.DirEntry instances are not intended to be stored in long-lived data structures; if you know the file metadata has changed or if a long time has elapsed since calling
, call os.stat(entry.path) to fetch up-to-date information.
Because the os.DirEntry methods can make operating system calls, they may also raise
. If you need very fine-grained control over errors, you can catch
when calling one of the os.DirEntry methods and handle as appropriate.
To be directly usable as a
, os.DirEntry implements the
interface.
Attributes and methods on a os.DirEntry instance are as follows:
name
The entry’s base filename, relative to the
path argument.
The
attribute will be bytes if the
path argument is of type bytes and str otherwise. Use
to decode byte filenames.
path
The entry’s full path name: equivalent to os.path.join(scandir_path,entry.name) where scandir_path is the
path argument. The path is only absolute if the
path argument was absolute. If the
path argument was a
, the
attribute is the same as the
attribute.
The
attribute will be bytes if the
path argument is of type bytes and str otherwise. Use
to decode byte filenames.
inode()
Return the inode number of the entry.
The result is cached on the os.DirEntry object. Use os.stat(entry.path,follow_symlinks=False).st_ino to fetch up-to-date information.
On the first, uncached call, a system call is required on Windows but not on Unix.
is_dir(*, follow_symlinks=True)
Return True if this entry is a directory or a symbolic link pointing to a directory; return False if the entry is or points to any other kind of file, or if it doesn’t exist anymore.
If follow_symlinks is False, return True only if this entry is a directory (without following symlinks); return False if the entry is any other kind of file or if it doesn’t exist anymore.
The result is cached on the os.DirEntry object, with a separate cache for follow_symlinksTrue and False. Call
along with
to fetch up-to-date information.
On the first, uncached call, no system call is required in most cases. Specifically, for non-symlinks, neither Windows or Unix require a system call, except on certain Unix file systems, such as network file systems, that return dirent.d_type==DT_UNKNOWN. If the entry is a symlink, a system call will be required to follow the symlink unless follow_symlinks is False.
This method can raise
, such as
, but
is caught and not raised.
is_file(*, follow_symlinks=True)
Return True if this entry is a file or a symbolic link pointing to a file; return False if the entry is or points to a directory or other non-file entry, or if it doesn’t exist anymore.
If follow_symlinks is False, return True only if this entry is a file (without following symlinks); return False if the entry is a directory or other non-file entry, or if it doesn’t exist anymore.
The result is cached on the os.DirEntry object. Caching, system calls made, and exceptions raised are as per
.
is_symlink()
Return True if this entry is a symbolic link (even if broken); return False if the entry points to a directory or any kind of file, or if it doesn’t exist anymore.
The result is cached on the os.DirEntry object. Call
to fetch up-to-date information.
On the first, uncached call, no system call is required in most cases. Specifically, neither Windows or Unix require a system call, except on certain Unix file systems, such as network file systems, that return dirent.d_type==DT_UNKNOWN.
This method can raise
, such as
, but
is caught and not raised.
stat(*, follow_symlinks=True)
Return a
object for this entry. This method follows symbolic links by default; to stat a symbolic link add the follow_symlinks=False argument.
On Unix, this method always requires a system call. On Windows, it only requires a system call if follow_symlinks is True and the entry is a reparse point (for example, a symbolic link or directory junction).
On Windows, the st_ino, st_dev and st_nlink attributes of the
are always set to zero. Call
to get these attributes.
The result is cached on the os.DirEntry object, with a separate cache for follow_symlinksTrue and False. Call
to fetch up-to-date information.
Note that there is a nice correspondence between several attributes and methods of os.DirEntry and of
. In particular, the name attribute has the same meaning, as do the is_dir(), is_file(), is_symlink() and stat() methods.
New in version 3.5.
Changed in version 3.6: Added support for the
interface. Added support for
paths on Windows.
os.stat(path, *, dir_fd=None, follow_symlinks=True)
Get the status of a file or a file descriptor. Perform the equivalent of a stat() system call on the given path. path may be specified as either a string or bytes – directly or indirectly through the
interface – or as an open file descriptor. Return a
object.
This function normally follows symlinks; to stat a symlink add the argument follow_symlinks=False, or use
.
This function can support
and
.
On Windows, passing follow_symlinks=False will disable following all name-surrogate reparse points, which includes symlinks and directory junctions. Other types of reparse points that do not resemble links or that the operating system is unable to follow will be opened directly. When following a chain of multiple links, this may result in the original link being returned instead of the non-link that prevented full traversal. To obtain stat results for the final path in this case, use the
function to resolve the path name as far as possible and call
on the result. This does not apply to dangling symlinks or junction points, which will raise the usual exceptions.
Example:
>>> importos>>> statinfo=os.stat('somefile.txt')>>> statinfoos.stat_result(st_mode=33188, st_ino=7876932, st_dev=234881026,st_nlink=1, st_uid=501, st_gid=501, st_size=264, st_atime=1297230295,st_mtime=1297230027, st_ctime=1297230027)>>> statinfo.st_size264See also
and
functions.
Changed in version 3.3: Added the dir_fd and follow_symlinks parameters, specifying a file descriptor instead of a path.
Changed in version 3.8: On Windows, all reparse points that can be resolved by the operating system are now followed, and passing follow_symlinks=False disables following all name surrogate reparse points. If the operating system reaches a reparse point that it is not able to follow, stat now returns the information for the original path as if follow_symlinks=False had been specified instead of raising an error.
classos.stat_result
Object whose attributes correspond roughly to the members of the stat structure. It is used for the result of
,
and
.
Attributes:
st_mode
File mode: file type and file mode bits (permissions).
st_ino
Platform dependent, but if non-zero, uniquely identifies the file for a given value of st_dev. Typically:
the inode number on Unix,
the
on Windows
st_dev
Identifier of the device on which this file resides.
st_nlink
Number of hard links.
st_uid
User identifier of the file owner.
st_gid
Group identifier of the file owner.
st_size
Size of the file in bytes, if it is a regular file or a symbolic link. The size of a symbolic link is the length of the pathname it contains, without a terminating null byte.
Timestamps:
st_atime
Time of most recent access expressed in seconds.
st_mtime
Time of most recent content modification expressed in seconds.
st_ctime
Platform dependent:
the time of most recent metadata change on Unix,
the time of creation on Windows, expressed in seconds.
st_atime_ns
Time of most recent access expressed in nanoseconds as an integer.
New in version 3.3.
st_mtime_ns
Time of most recent content modification expressed in nanoseconds as an integer.
New in version 3.3.
st_ctime_ns
Platform dependent:
the time of most recent metadata change on Unix,
the time of creation on Windows, expressed in nanoseconds as an integer.
New in version 3.3.
Note
The exact meaning and resolution of the
,
, and
attributes depend on the operating system and the file system. For example, on Windows systems using the FAT or FAT32 file systems,
has 2-second resolution, and
has only 1-day resolution. See your operating system documentation for details.
Similarly, although
,
, and
are always expressed in nanoseconds, many systems do not provide nanosecond precision. On systems that do provide nanosecond precision, the floating-point object used to store
,
, and
cannot preserve all of it, and as such will be slightly inexact. If you need the exact timestamps you should always use
,
, and
.
On some Unix systems (such as Linux), the following attributes may also be available:
st_blocks
Number of 512-byte blocks allocated for file. This may be smaller than
/512 when the file has holes.
st_blksize
“Preferred” blocksize for efficient file system I/O. Writing to a file in smaller chunks may cause an inefficient read-modify-rewrite.
st_rdev
Type of device if an inode device.
st_flags
User defined flags for file.
On other Unix systems (such as FreeBSD), the following attributes may be available (but may be only filled out if root tries to use them):
st_gen
File generation number.
st_birthtime
Time of file creation.
On Solaris and derivatives, the following attributes may also be available:
st_fstype
String that uniquely identifies the type of the filesystem that contains the file.
On macOS systems, the following attributes may also be available:
st_rsize
Real size of the file.
st_creator
Creator of the file.
st_type
File type.
On Windows systems, the following attributes are also available:
st_file_attributes
Windows file attributes: dwFileAttributes member of the BY_HANDLE_FILE_INFORMATION structure returned by GetFileInformationByHandle(). See the FILE_ATTRIBUTE_*<stat.FILE_ATTRIBUTE_ARCHIVE> constants in the
module.
New in version 3.5.
st_reparse_tag
When
has the
set, this field contains the tag identifying the type of reparse point. See the
constants in the
module.
The standard module
defines functions and constants that are useful for extracting information from a stat structure. (On Windows, some items are filled with dummy values.)
For backward compatibility, a
instance is also accessible as a tuple of at least 10 integers giving the most important (and portable) members of the stat structure, in the order
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
. More items may be added at the end by some implementations. For compatibility with older Python versions, accessing
as a tuple always returns integers.
Changed in version 3.5: Windows now returns the file index as
when available.
Changed in version 3.7: Added the
member to Solaris/derivatives.
Changed in version 3.8: Added the
member on Windows.
Changed in version 3.8: On Windows, the
member now identifies special files as S_IFCHR, S_IFIFO or S_IFBLK as appropriate.
os.statvfs(path)
Perform a statvfs() system call on the given path. The return value is an object whose attributes describe the filesystem on the given path, and correspond to the members of the statvfs structure, namely: f_bsize, f_frsize, f_blocks, f_bfree, f_bavail, f_files, f_ffree, f_favail, f_flag, f_namemax, f_fsid.
Two module-level constants are defined for the f_flag attribute’s bit-flags: if ST_RDONLY is set, the filesystem is mounted read-only, and if ST_NOSUID is set, the semantics of setuid/setgid bits are disabled or not supported.
Additional module-level constants are defined for GNU/glibc based systems. These are ST_NODEV (disallow access to device special files), ST_NOEXEC (disallow program execution), ST_SYNCHRONOUS (writes are synced at once), ST_MANDLOCK (allow mandatory locks on an FS), ST_WRITE (write on file/directory/symlink), ST_APPEND (append-only file), ST_IMMUTABLE (immutable file), ST_NOATIME (do not update access times), ST_NODIRATIME (do not update directory access times), ST_RELATIME (update atime relative to mtime/ctime).
This function can support
.
Changed in version 3.2: The ST_RDONLY and ST_NOSUID constants were added.
Changed in version 3.3: Added support for specifying path as an open file descriptor.
Changed in version 3.4: The ST_NODEV, ST_NOEXEC, ST_SYNCHRONOUS, ST_MANDLOCK, ST_WRITE, ST_APPEND, ST_IMMUTABLE, ST_NOATIME, ST_NODIRATIME, and ST_RELATIME constants were added.
Changed in version 3.7: Added the f_fsid attribute.
os.supports_dir_fd
A
object indicating which functions in the
module accept an open file descriptor for their dir_fd parameter. Different platforms provide different features, and the underlying functionality Python uses to implement the dir_fd parameter is not available on all platforms Python supports. For consistency’s sake, functions that may support dir_fd always allow specifying the parameter, but will throw an exception if the functionality is used when it’s not locally available. (Specifying None for dir_fd is always supported on all platforms.)
To check whether a particular function accepts an open file descriptor for its dir_fd parameter, use the in operator on supports_dir_fd. As an example, this expression evaluates to True if
accepts open file descriptors for dir_fd on the local platform:
os.statinos.supports_dir_fdCurrently dir_fd parameters only work on Unix platforms; none of them work on Windows.
New in version 3.3.
os.supports_effective_ids
A
object indicating whether
permits specifying True for its effective_ids parameter on the local platform. (Specifying False for effective_ids is always supported on all platforms.) If the local platform supports it, the collection will contain
; otherwise it will be empty.
This expression evaluates to True if
supports effective_ids=True on the local platform:
os.accessinos.supports_effective_idsCurrently effective_ids is only supported on Unix platforms; it does not work on Windows.
New in version 3.3.
os.supports_fd
A
object indicating which functions in the
module permit specifying their path parameter as an open file descriptor on the local platform. Different platforms provide different features, and the underlying functionality Python uses to accept open file descriptors as path arguments is not available on all platforms Python supports.
To determine whether a particular function permits specifying an open file descriptor for its path parameter, use the in operator on supports_fd. As an example, this expression evaluates to True if
accepts open file descriptors for path on your local platform:
os.chdirinos.supports_fdNew in version 3.3.
os.supports_follow_symlinks
A
object indicating which functions in the
module accept False for their follow_symlinks parameter on the local platform. Different platforms provide different features, and the underlying functionality Python uses to implement follow_symlinks is not available on all platforms Python supports. For consistency’s sake, functions that may support follow_symlinks always allow specifying the parameter, but will throw an exception if the functionality is used when it’s not locally available. (Specifying True for follow_symlinks is always supported on all platforms.)
To check whether a particular function accepts False for its follow_symlinks parameter, use the in operator on supports_follow_symlinks. As an example, this expression evaluates to True if you may specify follow_symlinks=False when calling
on the local platform:
os.statinos.supports_follow_symlinksNew in version 3.3.
os.symlink(src, dst, target_is_directory=False, *, dir_fd=None)
Create a symbolic link pointing to src named dst.
On Windows, a symlink represents either a file or a directory, and does not morph to the target dynamically. If the target is present, the type of the symlink will be created to match. Otherwise, the symlink will be created as a directory if target_is_directory is True or a file symlink (the default) otherwise. On non-Windows platforms, target_is_directory is ignored.
This function can support
paths relative to directory descriptors
.
Note
On newer versions of Windows 10, unprivileged accounts can create symlinks if Developer Mode is enabled. When Developer Mode is not available/enabled, the SeCreateSymbolicLinkPrivilege privilege is required, or the process must be run as an administrator.
is raised when the function is called by an unprivileged user.
Raises an
os.symlink with arguments src, dst, dir_fd.
Changed in version 3.2: Added support for Windows 6.0 (Vista) symbolic links.
Changed in version 3.3: Added the dir_fd parameter, and now allow target_is_directory on non-Windows platforms.
Changed in version 3.6: Accepts a
for src and dst.
Changed in version 3.8: Added support for unelevated symlinks on Windows with Developer Mode.
os.sync()
Force write of everything to disk.
New in version 3.3.
os.truncate(path, length)
Truncate the file corresponding to path, so that it is at most length bytes in size.
This function can support
.
Raises an
os.truncate with arguments path, length.
New in version 3.3.
Changed in version 3.5: Added support for Windows
os.unlink(path, *, dir_fd=None)
Remove (delete) the file path. This function is semantically identical to
; the unlink name is its traditional Unix name. Please see the documentation for
for further information.
Raises an
os.remove with arguments path, dir_fd.
Changed in version 3.3: Added the dir_fd parameter.
os.utime(path, times=None, *, [ns, ]dir_fd=None, follow_symlinks=True)
Set the access and modified times of the file specified by path.
takes two optional parameters, times and ns. These specify the times set on path and are used as follows:
If ns is specified, it must be a 2-tuple of the form (atime_ns,mtime_ns) where each member is an int expressing nanoseconds.
If times is not None, it must be a 2-tuple of the form (atime,mtime) where each member is an int or float expressing seconds.
If times is None and ns is unspecified, this is equivalent to specifying ns=(atime_ns,mtime_ns) where both times are the current time.
It is an error to specify tuples for both times and ns.
Note that the exact times you set here may not be returned by a subsequent
call, depending on the resolution with which your operating system records access and modification times; see
. The best way to preserve exact times is to use the st_atime_ns and st_mtime_ns fields from the
result object with the ns parameter to
.
This function can support
,
paths relative to directory descriptors
and
.
Raises an
os.utime with arguments path, times, ns, dir_fd.
Changed in version 3.3: Added support for specifying path as an open file descriptor, and the dir_fd, follow_symlinks, and ns parameters.
os.walk(top, topdown=True, onerror=None, followlinks=False)
Generate the file names in a directory tree by walking the tree either top-down or bottom-up. For each directory in the tree rooted at directory top (including top itself), it yields a 3-tuple (dirpath,dirnames,filenames).
dirpath is a string, the path to the directory. dirnames is a list of the names of the subdirectories in dirpath (including symlinks to directories, and excluding '.' and '..'). filenames is a list of the names of the non-directory files in dirpath. Note that the names in the lists contain no path components. To get a full path (which begins with top) to a file or directory in dirpath, do os.path.join(dirpath,name). Whether or not the lists are sorted depends on the file system. If a file is removed from or added to the dirpath directory during generating the lists, whether a name for that file be included is unspecified.
If optional argument topdown is True or not specified, the triple for a directory is generated before the triples for any of its subdirectories (directories are generated top-down). If topdown is False, the triple for a directory is generated after the triples for all of its subdirectories (directories are generated bottom-up). No matter the value of topdown, the list of subdirectories is retrieved before the tuples for the directory and its subdirectories are generated.
When topdown is True, the caller can modify the dirnames list in-place (perhaps using
or slice assignment), and
will only recurse into the subdirectories whose names remain in dirnames; this can be used to prune the search, impose a specific order of visiting, or even to inform
about directories the caller creates or renames before it resumes
again. Modifying dirnames when topdown is False has no effect on the behavior of the walk, because in bottom-up mode the directories in dirnames are generated before dirpath itself is generated.
By default, errors from the
call are ignored. If optional argument onerror is specified, it should be a function; it will be called with one argument, an
instance. It can report the error to continue with the walk, or raise the exception to abort the walk. Note that the filename is available as the filename attribute of the exception object.
By default,
will not walk down into symbolic links that resolve to directories. Set followlinks to True to visit directories pointed to by symlinks, on systems that support them.
Note
Be aware that setting followlinks to True can lead to infinite recursion if a link points to a parent directory of itself.
does not keep track of the directories it visited already.
Note
If you pass a relative pathname, don’t change the current working directory between resumptions of
.
never changes the current directory, and assumes that its caller doesn’t either.
This example displays the number of bytes taken by non-directory files in each directory under the starting directory, except that it doesn’t look under any CVS subdirectory:
importosfromos.pathimportjoin,getsizeforroot,dirs,filesinos.walk('python/Lib/email'):print(root,"consumes",end=" ")print(sum(getsize(join(root,name))fornameinfiles),end=" ")print("bytes in",len(files),"non-directory files")if'CVS'indirs:dirs.remove('CVS')# don't visit CVS directoriesIn the next example (simple implementation of
), walking the tree bottom-up is essential,
doesn’t allow deleting a directory before the directory is empty:
# Delete everything reachable from the directory named in "top",# assuming there are no symbolic links.# CAUTION: This is dangerous! For example, if top == '/', it# could delete all your disk files.importosforroot,dirs,filesinos.walk(top,topdown=False):fornameinfiles:os.remove(os.path.join(root,name))fornameindirs:os.rmdir(os.path.join(root,name))Raises an
os.walk with arguments top, topdown, onerror, followlinks.
Changed in version 3.5: This function now calls
instead of
, making it faster by reducing the number of calls to
.
os.fwalk(top='.', topdown=True, onerror=None, *, follow_symlinks=False, dir_fd=None)
This behaves exactly like
, except that it yields a 4-tuple (dirpath,dirnames,filenames,dirfd), and it supports dir_fd.
dirpath, dirnames and filenames are identical to
output, and dirfd is a file descriptor referring to the directory dirpath.
This function always supports
paths relative to directory descriptors
and
. Note however that, unlike other functions, the
default value for follow_symlinks is False.
Note
Since
yields file descriptors, those are only valid until the next iteration step, so you should duplicate them (e.g. with
) if you want to keep them longer.
This example displays the number of bytes taken by non-directory files in each directory under the starting directory, except that it doesn’t look under any CVS subdirectory:
importosforroot,dirs,files,rootfdinos.fwalk('python/Lib/email'):print(root,"consumes",end="")print(sum([os.stat(name,dir_fd=rootfd).st_sizefornameinfiles]),end="")print("bytes in",len(files),"non-directory files")if'CVS'indirs:dirs.remove('CVS')# don't visit CVS directoriesIn the next example, walking the tree bottom-up is essential:
doesn’t allow deleting a directory before the directory is empty:
# Delete everything reachable from the directory named in "top",# assuming there are no symbolic links.# CAUTION: This is dangerous! For example, if top == '/', it# could delete all your disk files.importosforroot,dirs,files,rootfdinos.fwalk(top,topdown=False):fornameinfiles:os.unlink(name,dir_fd=rootfd)fornameindirs:os.rmdir(name,dir_fd=rootfd)Raises an
os.fwalk with arguments top, topdown, onerror, follow_symlinks, dir_fd.
New in version 3.3.
Changed in version 3.7: Added support for
paths.
os.memfd_create(name[, flags=os.MFD_CLOEXEC])
Create an anonymous file and return a file descriptor that refers to it. flags must be one of the os.MFD_* constants available on the system (or a bitwise ORed combination of them). By default, the new file descriptor is
.
The name supplied in name is used as a filename and will be displayed as the target of the corresponding symbolic link in the directory /proc/self/fd/. The displayed name is always prefixed with memfd: and serves only for debugging purposes. Names do not affect the behavior of the file descriptor, and as such multiple files can have the same name without any side effects.
New in version 3.8.
os.MFD_CLOEXEC
os.MFD_ALLOW_SEALING
os.MFD_HUGETLB
os.MFD_HUGE_SHIFT
os.MFD_HUGE_MASK
os.MFD_HUGE_64KB
os.MFD_HUGE_512KB
os.MFD_HUGE_1MB
os.MFD_HUGE_2MB
os.MFD_HUGE_8MB
os.MFD_HUGE_16MB
os.MFD_HUGE_32MB
os.MFD_HUGE_256MB
os.MFD_HUGE_512MB
os.MFD_HUGE_1GB
os.MFD_HUGE_2GB
os.MFD_HUGE_16GB
These flags can be passed to
.
: Linux >= 3.17 with glibc >= 2.27
The MFD_HUGE* flags are only available since Linux 4.14.
New in version 3.8.
os.eventfd(initval[, flags=os.EFD_CLOEXEC])
Create and return an event file descriptor. The file descriptors supports raw
and
with a buffer size of 8,
,
and similar. See man page
for more information. By default, the new file descriptor is
.
initval is the initial value of the event counter. The initial value must be an 32 bit unsigned integer. Please note that the initial value is limited to a 32 bit unsigned int although the event counter is an unsigned 64 bit integer with a maximum value of 264-2.
flags can be constructed from
,
, and
.
If
is specified and the event counter is non-zero,
returns 1 and decrements the counter by one.
If
is not specified and the event counter is non-zero,
returns the current event counter value and resets the counter to zero.
If the event counter is zero and
is not specified,
blocks.
increments the event counter. Write blocks if the write operation would increment the counter to a value larger than 264-2.
Example:
importos# semaphore with start value '1'fd=os.eventfd(1,os.EFD_SEMAPHORE|os.EFC_CLOEXEC)try:# acquire semaphorev=os.eventfd_read(fd)try:do_work()finally:# release semaphoreos.eventfd_write(fd,v)finally:os.close(fd)New in version 3.10.
os.eventfd_read(fd)
Read value from an
file descriptor and return a 64 bit unsigned int. The function does not verify that fd is an
.
New in version 3.10.
os.eventfd_write(fd, value)
Add value to an
file descriptor. value must be a 64 bit unsigned int. The function does not verify that fd is an
.
New in version 3.10.
os.EFD_CLOEXEC
Set close-on-exec flag for new
file descriptor.
New in version 3.10.
os.EFD_NONBLOCK
Set
status flag for new
file descriptor.
New in version 3.10.
os.EFD_SEMAPHORE
Provide semaphore-like semantics for reads from a
file descriptor. On read the internal counter is decremented by one.
New in version 3.10.
Linux extended attributes
New in version 3.3.
These functions are all available on Linux only.
os.getxattr(path, attribute, *, follow_symlinks=True)
Return the value of the extended filesystem attribute attribute for path. attribute can be bytes or str (directly or indirectly through the
interface). If it is str, it is encoded with the filesystem encoding.
This function can support
and
.
Raises an
os.getxattr with arguments path, attribute.
Changed in version 3.6: Accepts a
for path and attribute.
os.listxattr(path=None, *, follow_symlinks=True)
Return a list of the extended filesystem attributes on path. The attributes in the list are represented as strings decoded with the filesystem encoding. If path is None,
will examine the current directory.
This function can support
and
.
Raises an
os.listxattr with argument path.
os.removexattr(path, attribute, *, follow_symlinks=True)
Removes the extended filesystem attribute attribute from path. attribute should be bytes or str (directly or indirectly through the
interface). If it is a string, it is encoded with the
filesystem encoding and error handler
.
This function can support
and
.
Raises an
os.removexattr with arguments path, attribute.
Changed in version 3.6: Accepts a
for path and attribute.
os.setxattr(path, attribute, value, flags=0, *, follow_symlinks=True)
Set the extended filesystem attribute attribute on path to value. attribute must be a bytes or str with no embedded NULs (directly or indirectly through the
interface). If it is a str, it is encoded with the
filesystem encoding and error handler
. flags may be
or
. If
is given and the attribute does not exist, ENODATA will be raised. If
is given and the attribute already exists, the attribute will not be created and EEXISTS will be raised.
This function can support
and
.
Note
A bug in Linux kernel versions less than 2.6.39 caused the flags argument to be ignored on some filesystems.
Raises an
os.setxattr with arguments path, attribute, value, flags.
Changed in version 3.6: Accepts a
for path and attribute.
os.XATTR_SIZE_MAX
The maximum size the value of an extended attribute can be. Currently, this is 64 KiB on Linux.
os.XATTR_CREATE
This is a possible value for the flags argument in
. It indicates the operation must create an attribute.
os.XATTR_REPLACE
This is a possible value for the flags argument in
. It indicates the operation must replace an existing attribute.
Process Management
These functions may be used to create and manage processes.
The various
functions take a list of arguments for the new program loaded into the process. In each case, the first of these arguments is passed to the new program as its own name rather than as an argument a user may have typed on a command line. For the C programmer, this is the argv[0] passed to a program’s main(). For example, os.execv('/bin/echo',['foo','bar']) will only print bar on standard output; foo will seem to be ignored.
os.abort()
Generate a SIGABRT signal to the current process. On Unix, the default behavior is to produce a core dump; on Windows, the process immediately returns an exit code of 3. Be aware that calling this function will not call the Python signal handler registered for SIGABRT with
.
os.add_dll_directory(path)
Add a path to the DLL search path.
This search path is used when resolving dependencies for imported extension modules (the module itself is resolved through
), and also by
.
Remove the directory by calling close() on the returned object or using it in a
statement.
See the
for more information about how DLLs are loaded.
Raises an
os.add_dll_directory with argument path.
New in version 3.8: Previous versions of CPython would resolve DLLs using the default behavior for the current process. This led to inconsistencies, such as only sometimes searching PATH or the current working directory, and OS functions such as AddDllDirectory having no effect.
In 3.8, the two primary ways DLLs are loaded now explicitly override the process-wide behavior to ensure consistency. See the
for information on updating libraries.
os.execl(path, arg0, arg1, ...)
os.execle(path, arg0, arg1, ..., env)
os.execlp(file, arg0, arg1, ...)
os.execlpe(file, arg0, arg1, ..., env)
os.execv(path, args)
os.execve(path, args, env)
os.execvp(file, args)
os.execvpe(file, args, env)
These functions all execute a new program, replacing the current process; they do not return. On Unix, the new executable is loaded into the current process, and will have the same process id as the caller. Errors will be reported as
exceptions.
The current process is replaced immediately. Open file objects and descriptors are not flushed, so if there may be data buffered on these open files, you should flush them using sys.stdout.flush() or
before calling an
function.
The “l” and “v” variants of the
functions differ in how command-line arguments are passed. The “l” variants are perhaps the easiest to work with if the number of parameters is fixed when the code is written; the individual parameters simply become additional parameters to the execl*() functions. The “v” variants are good when the number of parameters is variable, with the arguments being passed in a list or tuple as the args parameter. In either case, the arguments to the child process should start with the name of the command being run, but this is not enforced.
The variants which include a “p” near the end (
,
,
, and
) will use the PATH environment variable to locate the program file. When the environment is being replaced (using one of the
variants, discussed in the next paragraph), the new environment is used as the source of the PATH variable. The other variants,
,
,
, and
, will not use the PATH variable to locate the executable; path must contain an appropriate absolute or relative path.
For
,
,
, and
(note that these all end in “e”), the env parameter must be a mapping which is used to define the environment variables for the new process (these are used instead of the current process’ environment); the functions
,
,
, and
all cause the new process to inherit the environment of the current process.
For
on some platforms, path may also be specified as an open file descriptor. This functionality may not be supported on your platform; you can check whether or not it is available using
. If it is unavailable, using it will raise a
.
Raises an
os.exec with arguments path, args, env.
: Unix, Windows, not Emscripten, not WASI.
Changed in version 3.3: Added support for specifying path as an open file descriptor for
.
os._exit(n)
Exit the process with status n, without calling cleanup handlers, flushing stdio buffers, etc.
Note
The standard way to exit is
. _exit() should normally only be used in the child process after a
.
The following exit codes are defined and can be used with
, although they are not required. These are typically used for system programs written in Python, such as a mail server’s external command delivery program.
Note
Some of these may not be available on all Unix platforms, since there is some variation. These constants are defined where they are defined by the underlying platform.
os.EX_OK
Exit code that means no error occurred. May be taken from the defined value of EXIT_SUCCESS on some platforms. Generally has a value of zero.
os.EX_USAGE
Exit code that means the command was used incorrectly, such as when the wrong number of arguments are given.
os.EX_DATAERR
Exit code that means the input data was incorrect.
os.EX_NOINPUT
Exit code that means an input file did not exist or was not readable.
os.EX_NOUSER
Exit code that means a specified user did not exist.
os.EX_NOHOST
Exit code that means a specified host did not exist.
os.EX_UNAVAILABLE
Exit code that means that a required service is unavailable.
os.EX_SOFTWARE
Exit code that means an internal software error was detected.
os.EX_OSERR
Exit code that means an operating system error was detected, such as the inability to fork or create a pipe.
os.EX_OSFILE
Exit code that means some system file did not exist, could not be opened, or had some other kind of error.
os.EX_CANTCREAT
Exit code that means a user specified output file could not be created.
os.EX_IOERR
Exit code that means that an error occurred while doing I/O on some file.
os.EX_TEMPFAIL
Exit code that means a temporary failure occurred. This indicates something that may not really be an error, such as a network connection that couldn’t be made during a retryable operation.
os.EX_PROTOCOL
Exit code that means that a protocol exchange was illegal, invalid, or not understood.
os.EX_NOPERM
Exit code that means that there were insufficient permissions to perform the operation (but not intended for file system problems).
os.EX_CONFIG
Exit code that means that some kind of configuration error occurred.
os.EX_NOTFOUND
Exit code that means something like “an entry was not found”.
os.fork()
Fork a child process. Return 0 in the child and the child’s process id in the parent. If an error occurs
is raised.
Note that some platforms including FreeBSD <= 6.3 and Cygwin have known issues when using fork() from a thread.
Raises an
os.fork with no arguments.
Warning
On macOS the use of this function is unsafe when mixed with using higher-level system APIs, and that includes using
.
Changed in version 3.8: Calling fork() in a subinterpreter is no longer supported (
is raised).
Warning
See
for applications that use the SSL module with fork().
os.forkpty()
Fork a child process, using a new pseudo-terminal as the child’s controlling terminal. Return a pair of (pid,fd), where pid is 0 in the child, the new child’s process id in the parent, and fd is the file descriptor of the master end of the pseudo-terminal. For a more portable approach, use the
module. If an error occurs
is raised.
Raises an
os.forkpty with no arguments.
Warning
On macOS the use of this function is unsafe when mixed with using higher-level system APIs, and that includes using
.
Changed in version 3.8: Calling forkpty() in a subinterpreter is no longer supported (
is raised).
os.kill(pid, sig, /)
Send signal sig to the process pid. Constants for the specific signals available on the host platform are defined in the
module.
Windows: The
and
signals are special signals which can only be sent to console processes which share a common console window, e.g., some subprocesses. Any other value for sig will cause the process to be unconditionally killed by the TerminateProcess API, and the exit code will be set to sig. The Windows version of
additionally takes process handles to be killed.
See also
.
Raises an
os.kill with arguments pid, sig.
: Unix, Windows, not Emscripten, not WASI.
Changed in version 3.2: Added Windows support.
os.killpg(pgid, sig, /)
Send the signal sig to the process group pgid.
Raises an
os.killpg with arguments pgid, sig.
os.nice(increment, /)
Add increment to the process’s “niceness”. Return the new niceness.
os.pidfd_open(pid, flags=0)
Return a file descriptor referring to the process pid. This descriptor can be used to perform process management without races and signals. The flags argument is provided for future extensions; no flag values are currently defined.
See the
man page for more details.
New in version 3.9.
os.plock(op, /)
Lock program segments into memory. The value of op (defined in <sys/lock.h>) determines which segments are locked.
os.popen(cmd, mode='r', buffering=-1)
Open a pipe to or from command cmd. The return value is an open file object connected to the pipe, which can be read or written depending on whether mode is 'r' (default) or 'w'. The buffering argument have the same meaning as the corresponding argument to the built-in
function. The returned file object reads or writes text strings rather than bytes.
The close method returns
if the subprocess exited successfully, or the subprocess’s return code if there was an error. On POSIX systems, if the return code is positive it represents the return value of the process left-shifted by one byte. If the return code is negative, the process was terminated by the signal given by the negated value of the return code. (For example, the return value might be -signal.SIGKILL if the subprocess was killed.) On Windows systems, the return value contains the signed integer return code from the child process.
On Unix,
can be used to convert the close method result (exit status) into an exit code if it is not None. On Windows, the close method result is directly the exit code (or None).
This is implemented using
; see that class’s documentation for more powerful ways to manage and communicate with subprocesses.
os.posix_spawn(path, argv, env, *, file_actions=None, setpgroup=None, resetids=False, setsid=False, setsigmask=(), setsigdef=(), scheduler=None)
Wraps the posix_spawn() C library API for use from Python.
Most users should use
instead of
.
The positional-only arguments path, args, and env are similar to
.
The path parameter is the path to the executable file. The path should contain a directory. Use
to pass an executable file without directory.
The file_actions argument may be a sequence of tuples describing actions to take on specific file descriptors in the child process between the C library implementation’s fork() and exec() steps. The first item in each tuple must be one of the three type indicator listed below describing the remaining tuple elements:
os.POSIX_SPAWN_OPEN
(os.POSIX_SPAWN_OPEN, fd, path, flags, mode)
Performs os.dup2(os.open(path,flags,mode),fd).
os.POSIX_SPAWN_CLOSE
(os.POSIX_SPAWN_CLOSE, fd)
Performs os.close(fd).
os.POSIX_SPAWN_DUP2
(os.POSIX_SPAWN_DUP2, fd, new_fd)
Performs os.dup2(fd,new_fd).
These tuples correspond to the C library posix_spawn_file_actions_addopen(), posix_spawn_file_actions_addclose(), and posix_spawn_file_actions_adddup2() API calls used to prepare for the posix_spawn() call itself.
The setpgroup argument will set the process group of the child to the value specified. If the value specified is 0, the child’s process group ID will be made the same as its process ID. If the value of setpgroup is not set, the child will inherit the parent’s process group ID. This argument corresponds to the C library POSIX_SPAWN_SETPGROUP flag.
If the resetids argument is True it will reset the effective UID and GID of the child to the real UID and GID of the parent process. If the argument is False, then the child retains the effective UID and GID of the parent. In either case, if the set-user-ID and set-group-ID permission bits are enabled on the executable file, their effect will override the setting of the effective UID and GID. This argument corresponds to the C library POSIX_SPAWN_RESETIDS flag.
If the setsid argument is True, it will create a new session ID for posix_spawn. setsid requires POSIX_SPAWN_SETSID or POSIX_SPAWN_SETSID_NP flag. Otherwise,
is raised.
The setsigmask argument will set the signal mask to the signal set specified. If the parameter is not used, then the child inherits the parent’s signal mask. This argument corresponds to the C library POSIX_SPAWN_SETSIGMASK flag.
The sigdef argument will reset the disposition of all signals in the set specified. This argument corresponds to the C library POSIX_SPAWN_SETSIGDEF flag.
The scheduler argument must be a tuple containing the (optional) scheduler policy and an instance of
with the scheduler parameters. A value of None in the place of the scheduler policy indicates that is not being provided. This argument is a combination of the C library POSIX_SPAWN_SETSCHEDPARAM and POSIX_SPAWN_SETSCHEDULER flags.
Raises an
os.posix_spawn with arguments path, argv, env.
New in version 3.8.
os.posix_spawnp(path, argv, env, *, file_actions=None, setpgroup=None, resetids=False, setsid=False, setsigmask=(), setsigdef=(), scheduler=None)
Wraps the posix_spawnp() C library API for use from Python.
Similar to
except that the system searches for the executable file in the list of directories specified by the PATH environment variable (in the same way as for execvp(3)).
Raises an
os.posix_spawn with arguments path, argv, env.
New in version 3.8.
os.register_at_fork(*, before=None, after_in_parent=None, after_in_child=None)
Register callables to be executed when a new child process is forked using
or similar process cloning APIs. The parameters are optional and keyword-only. Each specifies a different call point.
before is a function called before forking a child process.
after_in_parent is a function called from the parent process after forking a child process.
after_in_child is a function called from the child process.
These calls are only made if control is expected to return to the Python interpreter. A typical
launch will not trigger them as the child is not going to re-enter the interpreter.
Functions registered for execution before forking are called in reverse registration order. Functions registered for execution after forking (either in the parent or in the child) are called in registration order.
Note that fork() calls made by third-party C code may not call those functions, unless it explicitly calls
,
and
.
There is no way to unregister a function.
New in version 3.7.
os.spawnl(mode, path, ...)
os.spawnle(mode, path, ..., env)
os.spawnlp(mode, file, ...)
os.spawnlpe(mode, file, ..., env)
os.spawnv(mode, path, args)
os.spawnve(mode, path, args, env)
os.spawnvp(mode, file, args)
os.spawnvpe(mode, file, args, env)
Execute the program path in a new process.
(Note that the
module provides more powerful facilities for spawning new processes and retrieving their results; using that module is preferable to using these functions. Check especially the
Replacing Older Functions with the subprocess Module
section.)
If mode is
, this function returns the process id of the new process; if mode is
, returns the process’s exit code if it exits normally, or -signal, where signal is the signal that killed the process. On Windows, the process id will actually be the process handle, so can be used with the
function.
Note on VxWorks, this function doesn’t return -signal when the new process is killed. Instead it raises OSError exception.
The “l” and “v” variants of the
functions differ in how command-line arguments are passed. The “l” variants are perhaps the easiest to work with if the number of parameters is fixed when the code is written; the individual parameters simply become additional parameters to the spawnl*() functions. The “v” variants are good when the number of parameters is variable, with the arguments being passed in a list or tuple as the args parameter. In either case, the arguments to the child process must start with the name of the command being run.
The variants which include a second “p” near the end (
,
,
, and
) will use the PATH environment variable to locate the program file. When the environment is being replaced (using one of the
variants, discussed in the next paragraph), the new environment is used as the source of the PATH variable. The other variants,
,
,
, and
, will not use the PATH variable to locate the executable; path must contain an appropriate absolute or relative path.
For
,
,
, and
(note that these all end in “e”), the env parameter must be a mapping which is used to define the environment variables for the new process (they are used instead of the current process’ environment); the functions
,
,
, and
all cause the new process to inherit the environment of the current process. Note that keys and values in the env dictionary must be strings; invalid keys or values will cause the function to fail, with a return value of 127.
As an example, the following calls to
and
are equivalent:
importosos.spawnlp(os.P_WAIT,'cp','cp','index.html','/dev/null')L=['cp','index.html','/dev/null']os.spawnvpe(os.P_WAIT,'cp',L,os.environ)Raises an
os.spawn with arguments mode, path, args, env.
: Unix, Windows, not Emscripten, not WASI.
,
,
and
are not available on Windows.
and
are not thread-safe on Windows; we advise you to use the
module instead.
os.P_NOWAIT
os.P_NOWAITO
Possible values for the mode parameter to the
family of functions. If either of these values is given, the
functions will return as soon as the new process has been created, with the process id as the return value.
os.P_WAIT
Possible value for the mode parameter to the
family of functions. If this is given as mode, the
functions will not return until the new process has run to completion and will return the exit code of the process the run is successful, or -signal if a signal kills the process.
os.P_DETACH
os.P_OVERLAY
Possible values for the mode parameter to the
family of functions. These are less portable than those listed above.
is similar to
, but the new process is detached from the console of the calling process. If
is used, the current process will be replaced; the
function will not return.
os.startfile(path[, operation][, arguments][, cwd][, show_cmd])
Start a file with its associated application.
When operation is not specified or 'open', this acts like double-clicking the file in Windows Explorer, or giving the file name as an argument to the start command from the interactive command shell: the file is opened with whatever application (if any) its extension is associated.
When another operation is given, it must be a “command verb” that specifies what should be done with the file. Common verbs documented by Microsoft are 'print' and 'edit' (to be used on files) as well as 'explore' and 'find' (to be used on directories).
When launching an application, specify arguments to be passed as a single string. This argument may have no effect when using this function to launch a document.
The default working directory is inherited, but may be overridden by the cwd argument. This should be an absolute path. A relative path will be resolved against this argument.
Use show_cmd to override the default window style. Whether this has any effect will depend on the application being launched. Values are integers as supported by the Win32 ShellExecute() function.
returns as soon as the associated application is launched. There is no option to wait for the application to close, and no way to retrieve the application’s exit status. The path parameter is relative to the current directory or cwd. If you want to use an absolute path, make sure the first character is not a slash ('/') Use
or the
function to ensure that paths are properly encoded for Win32.
To reduce interpreter startup overhead, the Win32 ShellExecute() function is not resolved until this function is first called. If the function cannot be resolved,
will be raised.
Raises an
os.startfile with arguments path, operation.
Raises an
os.startfile/2 with arguments path, operation, arguments, cwd, show_cmd.
Changed in version 3.10: Added the arguments, cwd and show_cmd arguments, and the os.startfile/2 audit event.
os.system(command)
Execute the command (a string) in a subshell. This is implemented by calling the Standard C function system(), and has the same limitations. Changes to
, etc. are not reflected in the environment of the executed command. If command generates any output, it will be sent to the interpreter standard output stream. The C standard does not specify the meaning of the return value of the C function, so the return value of the Python function is system-dependent.
On Unix, the return value is the exit status of the process encoded in the format specified for
.
On Windows, the return value is that returned by the system shell after running command. The shell is given by the Windows environment variable COMSPEC: it is usually cmd.exe, which returns the exit status of the command run; on systems using a non-native shell, consult your shell documentation.
The
module provides more powerful facilities for spawning new processes and retrieving their results; using that module is preferable to using this function. See the
Replacing Older Functions with the subprocess Module
section in the
documentation for some helpful recipes.
On Unix,
can be used to convert the result (exit status) into an exit code. On Windows, the result is directly the exit code.
Raises an
os.system with argument command.
: Unix, Windows, not Emscripten, not WASI.
os.times()
Returns the current global process times. The return value is an object with five attributes:
user - user time
system - system time
children_user - user time of all child processes
children_system - system time of all child processes
elapsed - elapsed real time since a fixed point in the past
For backwards compatibility, this object also behaves like a five-tuple containing user, system, children_user, children_system, and elapsed in that order.
See the Unix manual page
and
manual page on Unix or
on Windows. On Windows, only user and system are known; the other attributes are zero.
Changed in version 3.3: Return type changed from a tuple to a tuple-like object with named attributes.
os.wait()
Wait for completion of a child process, and return a tuple containing its pid and exit status indication: a 16-bit number, whose low byte is the signal number that killed the process, and whose high byte is the exit status (if the signal number is zero); the high bit of the low byte is set if a core file was produced.
If there are no children that could be waited for,
is raised.
can be used to convert the exit status into an exit code.
See also
The other wait*() functions documented below can be used to wait for the completion of a specific child process and have more options.
is the only one also available on Windows.
os.waitid(idtype, id, options, /)
Wait for the completion of a child process.
idtype can be
,
,
, or (on Linux)
. The interpretation of id depends on it; see their individual descriptions.
options is an OR combination of flags. At least one of
,
or
is required;
and
are additional optional flags.
The return value is an object representing the data contained in the siginfo_t structure with the following attributes:
si_pid (process ID)
si_uid (real user ID of the child)
si_signo (always
)
si_status (the exit status or signal number, depending on si_code)
si_code (see
for possible values)
If
is specified and there are no matching children in the requested state, None is returned. Otherwise, if there are no matching children that could be waited for,
is raised.
Note
This function is not available on macOS.
New in version 3.3.
os.waitpid(pid, options, /)
The details of this function differ on Unix and Windows.
On Unix: Wait for completion of a child process given by process id pid, and return a tuple containing its process id and exit status indication (encoded as for
). The semantics of the call are affected by the value of the integer options, which should be 0 for normal operation.
If pid is greater than 0,
requests status information for that specific process. If pid is 0, the request is for the status of any child in the process group of the current process. If pid is -1, the request pertains to any child of the current process. If pid is less than -1, status is requested for any process in the process group -pid (the absolute value of pid).
options is an OR combination of flags. If it contains
and there are no matching children in the requested state, (0,0) is returned. Otherwise, if there are no matching children that could be waited for,
is raised. Other options that can be used are
and
.
On Windows: Wait for completion of a process given by process handle pid, and return a tuple containing pid, and its exit status shifted left by 8 bits (shifting makes cross-platform use of the function easier). A pid less than or equal to 0 has no special meaning on Windows, and raises an exception. The value of integer options has no effect. pid can refer to any process whose id is known, not necessarily a child process. The
functions called with
return suitable process handles.
can be used to convert the exit status into an exit code.
: Unix, Windows, not Emscripten, not WASI.
Changed in version 3.5: If the system call is interrupted and the signal handler does not raise an exception, the function now retries the system call instead of raising an
exception (see
for the rationale).
os.wait3(options)
Similar to
, except no process id argument is given and a 3-element tuple containing the child’s process id, exit status indication, and resource usage information is returned. Refer to
for details on resource usage information. The options argument is the same as that provided to
and
.
can be used to convert the exit status into an exitcode.
os.wait4(pid, options)
Similar to
, except a 3-element tuple, containing the child’s process id, exit status indication, and resource usage information is returned. Refer to
for details on resource usage information. The arguments to
are the same as those provided to
.
can be used to convert the exit status into an exitcode.
os.P_PID
os.P_PGID
os.P_ALL
os.P_PIDFD
These are the possible values for idtype in
. They affect how id is interpreted:
P_PID - wait for the child whose PID is id.
P_PGID - wait for any child whose progress group ID is id.
P_ALL - wait for any child; id is ignored.
P_PIDFD - wait for the child identified by the file descriptor id (a process file descriptor created with
).
Note
P_PIDFD is only available on Linux >= 5.4.
New in version 3.3.
New in version 3.9: The P_PIDFD constant.
os.WCONTINUED
This options flag for
,
,
, and
causes child processes to be reported if they have been continued from a job control stop since they were last reported.
os.WEXITED
This options flag for
causes child processes that have terminated to be reported.
The other wait* functions always report children that have terminated, so this option is not available for them.
New in version 3.3.
os.WSTOPPED
This options flag for
causes child processes that have been stopped by the delivery of a signal to be reported.
This option is not available for the other wait* functions.
New in version 3.3.
os.WUNTRACED
This options flag for
,
, and
causes child processes to also be reported if they have been stopped but their current state has not been reported since they were stopped.
This option is not available for
.
os.WNOHANG
This options flag causes
,
,
, and
to return right away if no child process status is available immediately.
os.WNOWAIT
This options flag causes
to leave the child in a waitable state, so that a later wait*() call can be used to retrieve the child status information again.
This option is not available for the other wait* functions.
os.CLD_EXITED
os.CLD_KILLED
os.CLD_DUMPED
os.CLD_TRAPPED
os.CLD_STOPPED
os.CLD_CONTINUED
These are the possible values for si_code in the result returned by
.
New in version 3.3.
Changed in version 3.9: Added
and
values.
os.waitstatus_to_exitcode(status)
Convert a wait status to an exit code.
On Unix:
If the process exited normally (if WIFEXITED(status) is true), return the process exit status (return WEXITSTATUS(status)): result greater than or equal to 0.
If the process was terminated by a signal (if WIFSIGNALED(status) is true), return -signum where signum is the number of the signal that caused the process to terminate (return -WTERMSIG(status)): result less than 0.
Otherwise, raise a
.
On Windows, return status shifted right by 8 bits.
On Unix, if the process is being traced or if
was called with
option, the caller must first check if WIFSTOPPED(status) is true. This function must not be called if WIFSTOPPED(status) is true.
: Unix, Windows, not Emscripten, not WASI.
New in version 3.9.
The following functions take a process status code as returned by
,
, or
as a parameter. They may be used to determine the disposition of a process.
os.WCOREDUMP(status, /)
Return True if a core dump was generated for the process, otherwise return False.
This function should be employed only if
is true.
os.WIFCONTINUED(status)
Return True if a stopped child has been resumed by delivery of
(if the process has been continued from a job control stop), otherwise return False.
See
option.
os.WIFSTOPPED(status)
Return True if the process was stopped by delivery of a signal, otherwise return False.
only returns True if the
call was done using
option or when the process is being traced (see
).
os.WIFSIGNALED(status)
Return True if the process was terminated by a signal, otherwise return False.
os.WIFEXITED(status)
Return True if the process exited terminated normally, that is, by calling exit() or _exit(), or by returning from main(); otherwise return False.
os.WEXITSTATUS(status)
Return the process exit status.
This function should be employed only if
is true.
os.WSTOPSIG(status)
Return the signal which caused the process to stop.
This function should be employed only if
is true.
os.WTERMSIG(status)
Return the number of the signal that caused the process to terminate.
This function should be employed only if
is true.
Interface to the scheduler
These functions control how a process is allocated CPU time by the operating system. They are only available on some Unix platforms. For more detailed information, consult your Unix manpages.
New in version 3.3.
The following scheduling policies are exposed if they are supported by the operating system.
os.SCHED_OTHER
The default scheduling policy.
os.SCHED_BATCH
Scheduling policy for CPU-intensive processes that tries to preserve interactivity on the rest of the computer.
os.SCHED_IDLE
Scheduling policy for extremely low priority background tasks.
os.SCHED_SPORADIC
Scheduling policy for sporadic server programs.
os.SCHED_FIFO
A First In First Out scheduling policy.
os.SCHED_RR
A round-robin scheduling policy.
os.SCHED_RESET_ON_FORK
This flag can be OR’ed with any other scheduling policy. When a process with this flag set forks, its child’s scheduling policy and priority are reset to the default.
classos.sched_param(sched_priority)
This class represents tunable scheduling parameters used in
,
, and
. It is immutable.
At the moment, there is only one possible parameter:
sched_priority
The scheduling priority for a scheduling policy.
os.sched_get_priority_min(policy)
Get the minimum priority value for policy. policy is one of the scheduling policy constants above.
os.sched_get_priority_max(policy)
Get the maximum priority value for policy. policy is one of the scheduling policy constants above.
os.sched_setscheduler(pid, policy, param, /)
Set the scheduling policy for the process with PID pid. A pid of 0 means the calling process. policy is one of the scheduling policy constants above. param is a
instance.
os.sched_getscheduler(pid, /)
Return the scheduling policy for the process with PID pid. A pid of 0 means the calling process. The result is one of the scheduling policy constants above.
os.sched_setparam(pid, param, /)
Set the scheduling parameters for the process with PID pid. A pid of 0 means the calling process. param is a
instance.
os.sched_getparam(pid, /)
Return the scheduling parameters as a
instance for the process with PID pid. A pid of 0 means the calling process.
os.sched_rr_get_interval(pid, /)
Return the round-robin quantum in seconds for the process with PID pid. A pid of 0 means the calling process.
os.sched_yield()
Voluntarily relinquish the CPU.
os.sched_setaffinity(pid, mask, /)
Restrict the process with PID pid (or the current process if zero) to a set of CPUs. mask is an iterable of integers representing the set of CPUs to which the process should be restricted.
os.sched_getaffinity(pid, /)
Return the set of CPUs the process with PID pid is restricted to.
If pid is zero, return the set of CPUs the calling thread of the current process is restricted to.
Miscellaneous System Information
os.confstr(name, /)
Return string-valued system configuration values. name specifies the configuration value to retrieve; it may be a string which is the name of a defined system value; these names are specified in a number of standards (POSIX, Unix 95, Unix 98, and others). Some platforms define additional names as well. The names known to the host operating system are given as the keys of the confstr_names dictionary. For configuration variables not included in that mapping, passing an integer for name is also accepted.
If the configuration value specified by name isn’t defined, None is returned.
If name is a string and is not known,
is raised. If a specific value for name is not supported by the host system, even if it is included in confstr_names, an
is raised with
for the error number.
os.confstr_names
Dictionary mapping names accepted by
to the integer values defined for those names by the host operating system. This can be used to determine the set of names known to the system.
os.cpu_count()
Return the number of logical CPUs in the system. Returns None if undetermined.
This number is not equivalent to the number of logical CPUs the current process can use. len(os.sched_getaffinity(0)) gets the number of logical CPUs the calling thread of the current process is restricted to
New in version 3.4.
os.getloadavg()
Return the number of processes in the system run queue averaged over the last 1, 5, and 15 minutes or raises
if the load average was unobtainable.
os.sysconf(name, /)
Return integer-valued system configuration values. If the configuration value specified by name isn’t defined, -1 is returned. The comments regarding the name parameter for
apply here as well; the dictionary that provides information on the known names is given by sysconf_names.
os.sysconf_names
Dictionary mapping names accepted by
to the integer values defined for those names by the host operating system. This can be used to determine the set of names known to the system.
Changed in version 3.11: Add 'SC_MINSIGSTKSZ' name.
The following data values are used to support path manipulation operations. These are defined for all platforms.
Higher-level operations on pathnames are defined in the
module.
os.curdir
The constant string used by the operating system to refer to the current directory. This is '.' for Windows and POSIX. Also available via
.
os.pardir
The constant string used by the operating system to refer to the parent directory. This is '..' for Windows and POSIX. Also available via
.
os.sep
The character used by the operating system to separate pathname components. This is '/' for POSIX and '\\' for Windows. Note that knowing this is not sufficient to be able to parse or concatenate pathnames — use
and
— but it is occasionally useful. Also available via
.
os.altsep
An alternative character used by the operating system to separate pathname components, or None if only one separator character exists. This is set to '/' on Windows systems where sep is a backslash. Also available via
.
os.extsep
The character which separates the base filename from the extension; for example, the '.' in os.py. Also available via
.
os.pathsep
The character conventionally used by the operating system to separate search path components (as in PATH), such as ':' for POSIX or ';' for Windows. Also available via
.
os.defpath
The default search path used by
and
if the environment doesn’t have a 'PATH' key. Also available via
.
os.linesep
The string used to separate (or, rather, terminate) lines on the current platform. This may be a single character, such as '\n' for POSIX, or multiple characters, for example, '\r\n' for Windows. Do not use os.linesep as a line terminator when writing files opened in text mode (the default); use a single '\n' instead, on all platforms.
os.devnull
The file path of the null device. For example: '/dev/null' for POSIX, 'nul' for Windows. Also available via
.
os.RTLD_LAZY
os.RTLD_NOW
os.RTLD_GLOBAL
os.RTLD_LOCAL
os.RTLD_NODELETE
os.RTLD_NOLOAD
os.RTLD_DEEPBIND
Flags for use with the
and
functions. See the Unix manual page
for what the different flags mean.
New in version 3.3.
Random numbers
os.getrandom(size, flags=0)
Get up to size random bytes. The function can return less bytes than requested.
These bytes can be used to seed user-space random number generators or for cryptographic purposes.
getrandom() relies on entropy gathered from device drivers and other sources of environmental noise. Unnecessarily reading large quantities of data will have a negative impact on other users of the /dev/random and /dev/urandom devices.
The flags argument is a bit mask that can contain zero or more of the following values ORed together:
and
.
See also the
.
New in version 3.6.
os.urandom(size, /)
Return a bytestring of size random bytes suitable for cryptographic use.
This function returns random bytes from an OS-specific randomness source. The returned data should be unpredictable enough for cryptographic applications, though its exact quality depends on the OS implementation.
On Linux, if the getrandom() syscall is available, it is used in blocking mode: block until the system urandom entropy pool is initialized (128 bits of entropy are collected by the kernel). See the
for the rationale. On Linux, the
function can be used to get random bytes in non-blocking mode (using the
flag) or to poll until the system urandom entropy pool is initialized.
On a Unix-like system, random bytes are read from the /dev/urandom device. If the /dev/urandom device is not available or not readable, the
exception is raised.
On Windows, it will use BCryptGenRandom().
See also
The
module provides higher level functions. For an easy-to-use interface to the random number generator provided by your platform, please see
.
Changed in version 3.5: On Linux 3.17 and newer, the getrandom() syscall is now used when available. On OpenBSD 5.6 and newer, the C getentropy() function is now used. These functions avoid the usage of an internal file descriptor.
Changed in version 3.5.2: On Linux, if the getrandom() syscall blocks (the urandom entropy pool is not initialized yet), fall back on reading /dev/urandom.
Changed in version 3.6: On Linux, getrandom() is now used in blocking mode to increase the security.
Changed in version 3.11: On Windows, BCryptGenRandom() is used instead of CryptGenRandom() which is deprecated.
os.GRND_NONBLOCK
By default, when reading from /dev/random,
blocks if no random bytes are available, and when reading from /dev/urandom, it blocks if the entropy pool has not yet been initialized.
If the
flag is set, then
does not block in these cases, but instead immediately raises
.
New in version 3.6.
os.GRND_RANDOM
If this bit is set, then random bytes are drawn from the /dev/random pool instead of the /dev/urandom pool.
New in version 3.6.