How to open and read through multiple files in a directory with python

[Tiger1]

I can open and read the content of a single text file using the following line of code.

f = open('C:\\xyz.text', 'r')
     f.read()

How can I read through multiple files in a directory? as I would like to compare them based on the similarity of their content (textual content). Any suggests? thanks.

[bvdet]

You can use os.walk to compile a list of file names in a directory. Try the following to see what information os.walk provides:

for root, dirs, files in os.walk(dir_name):
	print root
	print "  "+"\n  ".join(dirs)
	print "    "+"\n    ".join(files)
	print "*"*40

[Tiger1]

Hi bvdet, thanks for the response. The code worked, but the content of the files were not displayed, only the file names. Is there a way display the contents of the files in the directory? as another module would want to read the content of the files and compare them.

[bvdet]

To open a file from os.walk output, you need to concatenate the root directory and file name:

f1 = os.path.join(root, file_name)

If you want to see if the contents of two files are equal:

open(f1).read() == open(f2).read()

[Tiger1]

Hi bvdet, thanks for help. You its now sorted.