[Python] os.stat('file')

[TreeFinger]

Well I don't know who is familiar with os.stat() but I am wondering how you get the information to print into readable form.

os.stat() just spits a tuple out with numbers. I know what information this regards (last access time, etc) but how do I get that printed in a readable form?


>>> os.stat('.')
(16895, 0L, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0L, 1217961252, 1217427367, 1216048629)

[era86]

Why not go through the tuple and print it out from there? Do like..

my_stat = os.stat()

Or something and travrse the tuple printing out info as you go.

Does that answer your question? Maybe I misunderstood. Let me know.

[TreeFinger]

Why not go through the tuple and print it out from there? Do like..

my_stat = os.stat()

Or something and travrse the tuple printing out info as you go.

Does that answer your question? Maybe I misunderstood. Let me know.

That would just print out that number that has no meaning to a human.

I believe the way to go about it is:


import os, time, os.path, stat
stats = os.stat('file name')
print time.strftime("%m/%d%Y",time.localtime(stats[stat.ST_ATIME]))


If there is a better way, please inform me!

[geirha]

More or less. os.stat returns an instance of stat_result though, which means you don't need to import the stat module. help('os.stat_result')

import os, time
print time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d", time.localtime(os.stat('file name').st_atime))
print time.ctime(os.stat('file name').st_mtime)

[samjh]

I believe the way to go about it is:


import os, time, os.path, stat
stats = os.stat('file name')
print time.strftime("%m/%d%Y",time.localtime(stats[stat.ST_ATIME]))


If there is a better way, please inform me!

Sometimes, you do need to do some manual work to get what you want. ;)

If you haven't already done so, read the entry for stat() here:
http://docs.python.org/lib/os-file-dir.html

And also examine the symbolic indexes here:
http://docs.python.org/lib/module-stat.html

Example for file size:

import os

thestat = os.stat("myfile")
print "size =", thestat[6], "bytes"

[bvmou]

The simplest thing is to call

os.stat('/the/file.ext').st_size
or

os.stat('the_item').st_mtime
and then do some arithmetic on the output, like dividing the .st_size call by 1000 and giving a human friendly value in megabytes, or putting the mtime call in an 'hours ago' format along the lines geirha suggests.