Skip to content

os-stat (PTH116)

Derived from the flake8-use-pathlib linter.

What it does

Checks for uses of os.stat.

Why is this bad?

pathlib offers a high-level API for path manipulation, as compared to the lower-level API offered by os. When possible, using Path object methods such as Path.stat() can improve readability over the os module's counterparts (e.g., os.path.stat()).

Examples

import os
from pwd import getpwuid
from grp import getgrgid

stat = os.stat(file_name)
owner_name = getpwuid(stat.st_uid).pw_name
group_name = getgrgid(stat.st_gid).gr_name

Use instead:

from pathlib import Path

file_path = Path(file_name)
stat = file_path.stat()
owner_name = file_path.owner()
group_name = file_path.group()

Known issues

While using pathlib can improve the readability and type safety of your code, it can be less performant than the lower-level alternatives that work directly with strings, especially on older versions of Python.

References