apply command to list of files in python

Question

I've a tricky problem. I need to apply a specific command called xRITDecompress to a list of files with extension -C_ and I should do this with Python.

Unfortunately, this command doesn't work with wildcards and I can't do something like:

os.system("xRITDecompress *-C_")

In principle, I could write an auxiliary bash script with a for cycle and call it inside my python program. However, I'd like not to rely on auxiliary files...

What would be the best way to do this within a python program?

Answer 1

You can use glob.glob() to get the list of files on which you want to run the command and then for each file in that list, run the command -

import glob
for f in glob.glob('*-C_'):
    os.system('xRITDecompress {}'.format(f))

From documentation -

The glob module finds all the pathnames matching a specified pattern according to the rules used by the Unix shell.

If by _ (underscore) , you wanted to match a single character , you should use - ? instead , like -

glob.glob('*-C?')

Please note, glob would only search in current directory but according to what you wanted with the original trial, seems like that maybe what you want.

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You may also, want to look at subprocess module, it is a more powerful module for running commands (spawning processes). Example -

import subprocess
import glob
for f in glob.glob('*-C_'):
    subprocess.call(['xRITDecompress',f])