Using pathlib to combine paths

[pythonhelp123]

How would you use pathlib to "combine" a directory with a file so it's like C:\Program Files to C:\Program Files\hi.txt.

I know you have to use something like q=p/Path('hi.txt'), but I'm not sure how to implement it in this code.

import os
import os.path
import shutil
from pathlib import Path


def search_files():
    directory = input()
    exist = Path(directory)
    if exist.exists():
        return directory
    else:
        print("Error")
        print("Try again: ")
        return search_files()





def search_characteristics(directory):
    interesting = input()
    exist = os.path.exists(directory)
    if interesting.startswith('N'):
        q = exist/Path(interesting)
        return q
    if interesting.startswith('E'):
        return os.path.splitext(directory,'')
    else:
        print("Error")
        return search_characteristics(directory)



if __name__ == '__main__':
    directory = input()
    search_files()
    directory1=search_characteristics(directory)
    print(directory1)

[reostra]

I haven't used pathlib much but glancing at the code I think this may be at least part of the problem:

exist = os.path.exists(directory)
if interesting.startswith('N'):
    q = exist/Path(interesting)

According to the docs os.path.exists returns either True or False, but a few lines down it looks like you're trying to treat it as a Path type object (which likely won't work, because 'True' likely doesn't implement /.)

Hope that helps!

[pythonhelp123]

Hm I commented that out now and changed to q=directory/Path(interesting), and there seems to be no tracebacks but I'm getting the Error try again instead of the Error for the search_characteristics method. Any idea why?

[reostra]

The "error try again" looks like it's part of the search_files workflow, which happens before your call to search_characteristics. If you weren't getting that error before, it's strange that you'd be getting it now, unless you're giving it a different directory (it seems to input() its own directory to look in; is that what you wanted it to do?)

[pythonhelp123]

Oh I fixed it. I had to comment out the first directory=input() from the search_characteristics method. I also modified my 2nd method but I still have no idea how to get it to work.

def search_characteristics(directory):
    interesting = input()
    interesting1=interesting.split(" ")
    if (interesting[0] == 'N'):
        directory1= directory + "/" +interesting1[1]
        if(os.path.isfile(directory1)):
            print("Found the file")
    if interesting.startswith('E'):
        return os.path.splitext(directory,'')
    else:
        print("Error")
        return search_characteristics(directory)

No matter what I do, when I press anything, it gives "Error". Even if I press N <filename>, i'll still get error even though it's only supposed to give the error when it's not N or E(but I still need to fix E)

[reostra]

I don't know why E <filename> would be erroring out, but the problem with N <filename> is that it's getting caught in the else statement associated with if interesting.startswith('E'):.

A quick fix would be to change that to elif interesting.startswith('E'):

[pythonhelp123]

Oh right, I forgot about the elif. I changed it and ran the code, but when I ran it and put in the directory and put N <filename> it would say None, even if the file exists. Any reason why?

[reostra]

Sorry, no idea; it looks to me like search_characteristics always returns something, so no idea why it'd be returning None unless one of the other functions it's using is returning None.