How can I safely create a nested directory in Pyth

Question

What is the most elegant way to check if the directory a file is going to be written to exists, and if not, create the directory using Python? Here is what I tried:

import os

file_path = "/my/directory/filename.txt"
directory = os.path.dirname(file_path)

try:
    os.stat(directory)
except:
    os.mkdir(directory)       

f = file(filename)

Somehow, I missed os.path.exists (thanks kanja, Blair, and Douglas). This is what I have now:

def ensure_dir(file_path):
    directory = os.path.dirname(file_path)
    if not os.path.exists(directory):
        os.makedirs(directory)

Is there a flag for "open", that makes this happen automatically?

Answer 1

In Python 3.4 you can also use the brand new pathlib module:

from pathlib import Path
path = Path("/my/directory/filename.txt")
try:
    if not path.parent.exists():
        path.parent.mkdir(parents=True)
except OSError:
    # handle error; you can also catch specific errors like
    # FileExistsError and so on.