os-unlink (PTH108)

Derived from the flake8-use-pathlib linter.

What it does

Checks for uses of os.unlink.

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.unlink() can improve readability over the os module's counterparts (e.g., os.unlink()).

Examples

import os

os.unlink("file.py")

Use instead:

from pathlib import Path

Path("file.py").unlink()

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

• Python documentation: Path.unlink
• Python documentation: os.unlink
• PEP 428 – The pathlib module – object-oriented filesystem paths
• Correspondence between os and pathlib
• Why you should be using pathlib
• No really, pathlib is great