Run a command for all files in a directory

Question

I have a program that needs to run an command on all the files in a folder:

import glob
import os
dirName = "../pack"
if not os.path.exists(dirName):
 os.mkdir(dirName)
os.chdir("xml/")
files = []
for file in glob.glob("*.xml"):
 files.append(file)
os.chdir("..")
filearchiver_cmdline = "archiver.exe"
for myFile in files:
 filearchiver_cmdline += " xml\\" + myFile
os.system( filearchiver_cmdline )

The command should look like this:

Arhiver.exe file1.xml

What should I change / optimize for this code? Would a class be needed? Should there be logical def-s? Are the variables name good?

• rolfl: Hi nansy. This post is being discussed on meta: codereview.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9165/…

Answer 1

1. Looping over glob.glob to build files is unneeded.
2. You shouldn't need to chdir if you change the glob to xml/*.xml
3. filearchiver_cmdline can be changed to use str.join and a comprehension.

_{Note: untested}

import glob
import os
dir_name = "../pack"
if not os.path.exists(dir_name):
 os.mkdir(dir_name)
os.system(" ".join(
 ["archiver.exe"]
 + ["xml\\" + f for f in glob.glob("xml/*.xml")]
))