Determine whether a file is empty in Python

This post will discuss how to determine whether a file is empty in Python.

You can easily check for an empty file in Python by finding the size of the file, which should be 0 bytes. There are several ways to do that:

1. Using `os` module

The os.stat() function returns a stat_result object, whose st_size attribute stores the size of the file, in bytes.

import os

isempty = os.stat('path\to\file\filename.ext').st_size == 0

print(isempty)

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Alternatively, you can use the os.path.getsize() function to get the specified file size in bytes.

import os

size = os.path.getsize('path\to\file\filename.ext')

isempty = size == 0

print(isempty)

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2. Using `pathlib` module

With Python 3.4, you can use the pathlib.Path.stat() function, which returns the stat_result object containing information about the specified path, similar to the os.stat() function.

from pathlib import Path

path = Path('path\to\file\filename.ext')

isempty = path.stat().st_size == 0

print(isempty)

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3. Using File object

Another option is to open the file in reading mode using the built-in function open() and set the current position of the file descriptor at the end with the seek() function. Then you can use the tell() function to get the current position of the cursor in bytes.

import os

with open('path\to\file\filename.ext', 'r') as file:

file.seek(0, os.SEEK_END)

isempty = file.tell() == 0

file.seek(0) # rewind the file

print(isempty)

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That’s all about determining whether a file is empty in Python.

Determine whether a file is empty in Python

1. Using os module

2. Using pathlib module

3. Using File object

Share this:

1. Using `os` module

2. Using `pathlib` module