for loop in one line (for python -c)

Question

I want to use python -c to remove wheel files from the dist/ directory in my project. (*)

Actually, I use the following command:

python -c "from pathlib import Path; [p.unlink() for p in Path('dist').glob('Pascal_Scraper-*.whl')]"

Is there a shorter/cleaner way to do that?

---

(*) the setuptools command python setup.py rotate --keep=1 --match=.whl doesn't work for me.

• Holloway: Is there a reason you want to use python -c for this? I think rm dist/Pascal_Scaper-*.whl would be clearer.
• Laurent LAPORTE: Because rm is not available on Windows.
• Holloway: del dist\Pascal_Scraper-*.whl ? Or is this supposed to be crossplatform?
• Laurent LAPORTE: Cross-platform, of course.

Answer 1

If you need to use python for being crossplattform and if you need to do this in one line then this is the way to go, yes.

For some reason

Alternatives to consider:

• put the code in a file so you can make it more readable
• create a Makefile and run this under a target (like clean:)
• use os instead of pathlib to see if you like that better (pathlib is fine, though)
• use map and a lambda instead of list comprehension, to see if you like that better (probably not though)

I would have expected that a one-line for loop would work, but it doesn't seem to in python -c when there is a command before it.

I think there is no much cleaner solution

• Laurent LAPORTE: This command should live in a tox.ini file. So a makefile is not necessary.
• Laurent LAPORTE: map is an iterator, so I would use it like this: list(map(Path.unlink, Path('dist').glob('Pascal_Scraper-*.whl'))) which is not very clear, right?
• Kaligule: I think you could make an argument for map, but if it is not clear for you then it is not a good solution for you.