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> The downsides of os.listdir: a) You can't get a peek at the files so
> far, it's all or nothing. I only wanted to know if a directory is
> empty and I have to read the whole thing just to throw it away (maybe
> I missed another library function?)
This depends somewhat on the operating system. On Unix, doing os.stat
on the directory, then looking on st_nlink, will tell you whether
the directory is empty (st_nlink is 2 on an empty directory).
> b) Using it in a GUI basically requires you to use threads if you may
> run into a dir with many files. Especially on a slow filesystem
> (network). Because you won't regain control until the whole thing is
> read.
Hmm. In a GUI, you would typically want to sort the file names by
some criterion, which typically requires you to read all files
(even if you then only display some of them).
> I would like to have an iterator version as well, but I also dislike
> another function (especially the "x" prefix). How about adding a
> keyword argument to select iterator behaviour?
I still would like to see a demonstrable improvement in a real-world
application.