PYTHON: how to find the newest file in a directory and open it with cat

[leahk]

i am trying to first identify the last file added to the directory and then open it with cat.


r=commands.getoutput('ls -ct1 | head -1')

print r

os.system('cat r')



if i wrote os.system(cat 'name of file') it works but not with the variable

??

[xb12x]

Keep in mind that I'm currently learning Python myself:

c = 'cat'
x = c + ' ' + r
os.system(x)

[schauerlich]

os.system is evil.


filelist = os.listdir(os.getcwd())
filelist = filter(lambda x: not os.path.isdir(x), filelist)
newest = max(filelist, key=lambda x: os.stat(x).st_mtime)

"newest" will be a string with the name of the last modified file. You can then open it just like you would anything else.

[leahk]

the code is printing out the .pyc file....not the.py??

[schauerlich]

the code is printing out the .pyc file....not the.py??

Well, the .pyc file is created when the .py file is run, so it's going to be newer. You can manually filter out specific file extensions. Look into the "endswith" method of the string class, and look at the line using "filter".

[geirha]

And then, instead of running os.system('cat...'), do the "cat" with python.

[schauerlich]

do the "cat" with python.

http://grab.by/grabs/a921b5c18ce82835b213355fcd69b8d0.png

Am I doing it right?

[geirha]

http://grab.by/grabs/a921b5c18ce82835b213355fcd69b8d0.png

Am I doing it right?

Yes, that's exactly what I meant :)