[FIXED] how to search everywhere within a specific directory (including sub folders) using python

Issue

basically, as the title says, I want to be able to use a python script where I give a path/directory, and a file name, and it will search all the way through the path/directory just to find the file name.

I have tried using glob.glob() however it will only search within the directory and not within subfolders and such from what I have found.

Solution

From the glob.glob() docs (emphasis mine), starting at Python 3.5:

If recursive is true, the pattern "**" will match any files and zero or more directories, subdirectories and symbolic links to directories.

So you just put ** into your pattern where you want it to expand to any subdirectories and files therein and add recursive=True as a keyword argument.

For example, given a directory structure like

a
+-b
| +-d
|   +-f
+-c
  +-e

with your current working directory being a, you can do:

>>> from glob import glob
>>> glob("**", recursive=True)
['c', 'c/e', 'b', 'b/d', 'b/d/f']

For your specific use case of searching for a filename in all subdirectories, you'd do:

>>> glob("**/f", recursive=True)
['b/d/f']

Note that ** patterns also work in pathlib.Path.glob() and pathlib paths are often more comfortable to use than the more low-level os.path and glob modules.

Answered By - smheidrich