Finding empty directories in Python

aeupinhere picture aeupinhere · Jun 2, 2011 · Viewed 45.6k times · Source

All,

What is the best way to check to see if there is data in a directory before deleting it? I am browsing through a couple pages to find some pics using wget and of course every page does not have an image on it but the directory is still created.

dir = 'Files\\%s' % (directory)
os.mkdir(dir)
cmd = 'wget -r -l1 -nd -np -A.jpg,.png,.gif -P %s %s' %(dir,  i[1])
os.system(cmd)
if not os.path.isdir(dir):
    os.rmdir(dir)

I would like to test to see if a file was dropped in the directory after it was created. If nothing is there...delete it.

Thanks, Adam

Answer

Corey Goldberg picture Corey Goldberg · Jun 2, 2011
import os

if not os.listdir(dir):
    os.rmdir(dir)

LBYL style.
for EAFP, see mouad's answer.