Better way to convert file sizes in Python

python filesize
user225312 picture user225312 · Mar 4, 2011 · Viewed 132.3k times · Source

I am using a library that reads a file and returns its size in bytes.

This file size is then displayed to the end user; to make it easier for them to understand it, I am explicitly converting the file size to MB by dividing it by 1024.0 * 1024.0. Of course this works, but I am wondering is there a better way to do this in Python?

By better, I mean perhaps a stdlib function that can manipulate sizes according to the type I want. Like if I specify MB, it automatically divides it by 1024.0 * 1024.0. Somethign on these lines.

Answer

James picture James · Feb 11, 2013

Here is what I use: 

import math

def convert_size(size_bytes):
   if size_bytes == 0:
       return "0B"
   size_name = ("B", "KB", "MB", "GB", "TB", "PB", "EB", "ZB", "YB")
   i = int(math.floor(math.log(size_bytes, 1024)))
   p = math.pow(1024, i)
   s = round(size_bytes / p, 2)
   return "%s %s" % (s, size_name[i])

NB : size should be sent in Bytes.

Related questions

Reusable library to get human readable version of file size?

There are various snippets on the web that would give you a function to return human readable size from bytes size: >>> human_readable(2048) '2 kilobytes' >>> But is there a Python library that provides this?

Read More
Size of an open file object

Is there a way to find the size of a file object that is currently open? Specifically, I am working with the tarfile module to create tarfiles, but I don't want my tarfile to exceed a certain size. As far …

Read More
How to get image size (bytes) using PIL

I found out how to use PIL to get the image dimensions, but not the file size in bytes. I need to know the file size to decide if the file is too big to be uploaded to the database.

Read More