python Check whether a file or path exists

Employ the EAFP coding style and try to open it.

import errno

try:

    with open(path) as f:

        # File exists except IOError as e:

    # Raise the exception if it is not ENOENT (No such file or directory)    

if e.errno != errno.ENOENT:

        raise    # No such file or directory

This will also avoid race-conditions if another process deleted the file between the check and when it is used. This race condition could happen in the following cases:

Using the os module:

import os os.path.isfile('/path/to/some/file.txt')

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.4

Using pathlib:

import pathlib path = pathlib.Path('/path/to/some/file.txt') if path.is_file():

    ...

To check whether a given path exists or not, you can follow the above EAFP procedure, or explicitly check the path:

import os path = "/home/myFiles/directory1"

if os.path.exists(path):    ## Do stuff