os vs shutil vs pathlib

A side-by-side comparison of Python's three main modules for file-system operations: os, shutil, and pathlib.

This repository contains example scripts and reference documentation showing how to perform the same file-system tasks with each module, plus the unique features of each.

Repository structure

os_shutil_pathlib/
├── README.md                    # This file
├── LICENSE
├── .gitignore
├── examples/                    # Demo scripts with identical 13 operations
│   ├── README.md
│   ├── os_demo.py
│   ├── shutil_demo.py
│   └── pathlib_demo.py
└── unique_characteristics/      # Features unique to each module
    ├── README.md
    ├── os_unique.py
    ├── shutil_unique.py
    └── pathlib_unique.py

What this repo demonstrates

examples/ — Common operations (same 13 steps in each demo)

Each demo script performs the identical sequence of 13 file-system operations inside a tempfile.TemporaryDirectory(), so you can compare them directly:

1. Create a subdirectory
2. Create a text file
3. List directory contents
4. Check if a file exists
5. Get absolute path
6. Get file extension
7. Get file size
8. Copy a file
9. Rename / move a file
10. Read file content
11. Delete the original file
12. Delete the renamed file
13. Delete the empty directory

File	Module	Style
examples/os_demo.py	os + os.path	Strings + os.path.join()
examples/shutil_demo.py	shutil + os.path	High-level ops (copy2, move, rmtree)
examples/pathlib_demo.py	pathlib	Object-oriented Path objects

unique_characteristics/ — Features unique to each module

Scripts that demonstrate capabilities only available in one module:

File	Unique features
unique_characteristics/os_unique.py	Environment variables, process management, file descriptors (low-level I/O), OS path constants, permissions (chmod), symlinks
unique_characteristics/shutil_unique.py	Copy with metadata (copy2), recursive copy/delete (copytree, rmtree), cross-filesystem move (move), disk usage (disk_usage), executable lookup (which), archive operations (make_archive, unpack_archive)
unique_characteristics/pathlib_unique.py	Paths as objects (/ operator), pure vs concrete paths, one-call read/write (read_text/write_text), glob pattern search (glob/rglob), path decomposition (.suffix, .stem, .name), resolve(), expanduser(), touch(), samefile()

Quick reference: when to use each module

Use case	Recommended module
Environment variables, processes, low-level I/O, permissions	os
Copy files with metadata, delete non-empty directories, move across filesystems, archives, disk usage	shutil
Readable path manipulation, glob search, one-call read/write, modern Python code	pathlib
Most general file tasks	pathlib (Python's current recommendation)

How to run the examples

From the repository root:

python examples/os_demo.py
python examples/shutil_demo.py
python examples/pathlib_demo.py

python unique_characteristics/os_unique.py
python unique_characteristics/shutil_unique.py
python unique_characteristics/pathlib_unique.py

Each script uses tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() internally, so nothing is left behind in the repository.

Related documentation

• examples/README.md — Details about the demo scripts
• unique_characteristics/README.md — Details about the unique feature scripts