Rename file name in a directory using a for loop python

Question

I have a folder with the following contents in it:

1. one folder named: 1_blocks
2. list of 19 csv files by years: London_255_1999.csv, London_255_2000.csv, …, London_255_2017.csv
3. one other csv file: London_xyz_combined_output_all_years.csv

The task is to rename only the 19 csv files using a for loop starting with London_255_1999.csv, …, London_255_2017.csv into London_245_1999.csv, …, London_245_2017.csv (i.e. replacing 255 to 245 in each given file name).

Here is my code. I don't want other files and folders to get renamed. Only the 19 files mentioned above.

path = r'A:\Engineering'

for f in os.listdir(path):
    if f.startswith("London_255") and not f.endswith('years.csv'): 
      f_name, f_ext = os.path.splitext(f)

      f_site, f_strings, f_year = f_name.split('_')

      f_strings='245'
      f_site=f_site
      f_year=f_year

      new_name = '{}_{}_{}{}'.format(f_site, f_strings, f_year, f_ext)

      os.rename(f,new_name)

Please suggest the easiest way to rename, if any. I am getting the following error:

f_site, f_strings, f_year = f_name.split('_')
ValueError: not enough values to unpack (expected 3, got 2)

Answer 1

I modified your code to use a regular expression to find the correct file format and ignore the final csv you mentioned. After it makes a correct match it uses the os and shutil built in libraries to rename the csv files into the new format you specificed.

import shutil, os, re

# create a regex that finds files
# within the specified directory
# that fits the format you wrote about
# above
# Essentially, this regex statement is saying look 
# for the following pattern [any amount of letters]_[3 digits]_[4 digits].csv
file_format_pattern = re.compile(r'[\w]+_[\d]{3}_[\d]{4}\.csv')

path = r'A:\Engineering'

for file in os.listdir(path):
# Loop over the files in the working directory.
    correct_file = file_format_pattern.search(file)
    # Skip files that aren't in the correct format
    if correct_file:
        f_name, f_ext = os.path.splitext(file)
        f_site, f_strings, f_year = f_name.split('_')
        # New Filename with 245 format instead of 255
        new_filename = f_site + "_245_" + f_year + f_ext

        # Get the full, absolute file paths.
        absWorkingDir = os.path.abspath(path)
        original_file = os.path.join(absWorkingDir, file)
        renamed_file = os.path.join(absWorkingDir, new_filename)

        # With shutil rename original filenames to new filename format
        shutil.move(original_file, renamed_file)  

You can learn a lot of cool ways to organize, re-write, read, and modify files automatically following this awesome automation book called "Automate the Boring Stuff" by Al Sweigart.

It's free online here and it teaches you how to utilize Python for automation in an easy to understand manner.

I basically followed the chapter here to help with your question.

For more understand of regex patterns check out chapter 7 of the book. I worked this on my workstation and it correctly renamed the csv files with the 255 format and ignored the final csv.

Please let me know if you have any questions and hope this helps. Cheers!