Spaces in directory path python

Question

I'm a noob at coding Python and I've run into something that no amount of Googling is helping me with. I'm trying to write a simple Directory listing tool and I cannot seem to deal with Spaces in the directory name in OSX. My code is as follows:

def listdir_nohidden(path):
    import os
    for f in os.listdir(path):
        if not f.startswith('.'):
            yield f

def MACListDirNoExt():
import os
MACu = PCu = os.environ['USER']
MACDIR = '/Users/'+MACu+'/Desktop//'
while True:
    PATH = raw_input("What is the PATH you would like to list?")
    if os.path.exists(PATH):
        break
    else:
        print "That PATH cannot be found or does not exist."
NAME = raw_input ("What would you like to name your file?")
DIR = listdir_nohidden(PATH)
DIR = [os.path.splitext(x)[0] for x in DIR]
f = open(''+MACDIR+NAME+'.txt', "w")
for file in DIR:
    f.write(str(file) + "\n")
f.close()
print "The file %s.txt has been written to your Desktop" % (NAME)
raw_input ("Press Enter to exit")

For ease of trouble shooting though I think this could essentially be boiled down to:

import os
PATH = raw_input("What is the PATH you would like to list")
os.listdir(PATH)

When supplying a directory path that contains spaces /Volumes/Disk/this is a folder it returns

"No such file or Directory: '/Volumes/Disk/this\\ is\\ a\\ folder/'

It looks like its escaping the escape...?

The code shown cannot produce the error message shown. Please show the code you are actually running, unedited, the exact input you gave it, unedited, and the error message you actually got, unedited. — zwol
– zwol, Commented Apr 11, 2016 at 18:05
Note also that your second code fragment (the "boiled down" one) works correctly on directories with spaces in their names, and your first code fragment has become misindented and therefore I can't test it (don't use tabs). — zwol
– zwol, Commented Apr 11, 2016 at 18:07
(Is your problem maybe that you are typing backslashes at your prompt? Don't do that. The shell wants that, but this program doesn't.) — zwol
– zwol, Commented Apr 11, 2016 at 18:09
The last snippet works fine if the input is with spaces but no backslashes. — trans1st0r
– trans1st0r, Commented Apr 11, 2016 at 18:19
@dennis you can try checking the value returned from raw_input() for occurences of '\\' and replace them with ''. a = a.replace('\\', '') — trans1st0r
– trans1st0r, Commented Apr 11, 2016 at 19:08

trans1st0r · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-11 19:19:54Z

3

Check the value returned from raw_input() for occurences of '\\' and replace them with ''.

a = a.replace('\\', '')

answered Apr 11, 2016 at 19:19

trans1st0r

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1 Comment

social Aug 23 at 1:44

This should be the accepted answer @dennis

leekaiinthesky · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-16 18:32:52Z

I just ran into this, and I'm guessing that what I was hastily doing is also what you were trying. In a way, both @zwol and @trans1st0r are right.

Your boiled down program has nothing wrong with it. I believe that if you put in the input /Volumes/Disk/this is a folder, everything would work fine.

However, what you may have been doing (or at least, what I was doing) is dragging a folder from the Finder to the Terminal. When you drag to the Terminal, the OS automatically escapes spaces for you, so what ends up getting typed into the Terminal is /Volumes/Disk/this\ is\ a\ folder.

So either you can make sure that what you "type in" doesn't have those backslashes, or you can use @trans1st0r's suggestion as a way to support the dragging functionality, though the latter will cause issues in the edge case that your desired path actually has backslashes in it.

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