Globbing with glob and rglob

Collecting inputs like 'every .py file in the project' is a one-liner with glob.

p.glob(pattern) yields paths below p that match a shell-style pattern:

* matches any characters within one path component
? matches one character; [abc] a character set
** matches any number of directories, including none

So p.glob("*.csv") searches one level, p.glob("**/*.csv") the whole tree, and p.rglob("*.csv") is shorthand for the latter. Results come in arbitrary order; sort them for stable output.

Details worth knowing:

Hidden files (starting with .) are matched by *, unlike in most shells.
Matching follows the platform's case rules by default; pass case_sensitive=True/False (3.12+) to override.
In 3.13, a pattern ending in ** yields both files and directories; earlier versions yielded only directories. Add /* or a suffix pattern if you want files only.
glob returns a generator; wrap in list() or sorted() to reuse the results.
Symlinked directories are not followed by ** unless you pass recurse_symlinks=True (3.13).

To exclude directories such as .git or node_modules, filter the results (".git" not in p.parts), or use Path.walk() where you can prune whole subtrees for speed.

Example

from pathlib import Path

for f in ["src/app.py", "src/util/io.py", "src/util/README.md",
          "tests/test_app.py", ".venv/lib/x.py"]:
    p = Path(f)
    p.parent.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
    p.touch()

root = Path(".")
print(sorted(map(str, root.glob("src/*.py"))))   # ['src/app.py']
py = sorted(str(p) for p in root.rglob("*.py") if ".venv" not in p.parts)
print(py)    # ['src/app.py', 'src/util/io.py', 'tests/test_app.py']
print(sorted(p.name for p in root.glob("**/test_*.py")))  # ['test_app.py']
print(len(list(root.glob("src/util/*.MD", case_sensitive=False))))  # 1

Remember

glob('*.ext') searches one level; rglob('*.ext') or glob('**/*.ext') the whole tree
Results are unordered generators; sort and list them as needed
Filter by p.parts or use Path.walk to skip folders like .venv

Watch out for

Expecting glob('*.py') to search subdirectories; it only looks one level deep.

Check yourself

Which call finds config.yaml files in a folder and all its subfolders?

Official docs: docs.python.org/3/library/pathlib.html#pathlib.Path.glob

Example

Remember

Watch out for

Check yourself

Builds on

Unlocks