How to Extract File Extensions in Python?

Extracting File Extensions in Python

Extracting the file extension from a filename is a common task in programming. Python provides a convenient function, os.path.splitext, to handle this task effortlessly.

The os.path.splitext function takes a filename as an argument and returns a tuple containing two strings. The first string represents the filename without the extension, and the second string represents the extension itself.

For instance, if we provide the filename /path/to/somefile.ext to os.path.splitext, it will return:

>>> import os
>>> filename = '/path/to/somefile.ext'
>>> filename, file_extension = os.path.splitext(filename)
>>> filename
'/path/to/somefile'
>>> file_extension
'.ext'

Unlike manual string-splitting methods, os.path.splitext has several advantages:

• It correctly handles cases where the filename does not have an extension, such as /a/b.c/d:

>>> os.path.splitext('/a/b.c/d')
('/a/b.c/d', '')

• It also handles cases where the filename starts with a dot, such as .bashrc:

>>> os.path.splitext('.bashrc')
('.bashrc', '')

By using os.path.splitext, we can easily extract file extensions in a reliable and efficient manner.

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