Deleting file/dir using the os.remove() method

OS module in Python provides functions for interacting with the operating system. All functions in the os module raise OSError in the case of invalid or inaccessible file names and paths, or other arguments that have the correct type but are not accepted by the operating system. 

os.remove() method in Python is used to remove or delete a file path. This method can not remove or delete a directory. If the specified path is a directory then OSError will be raised by the method.

Syntax of os.remove()

Syntax: os.remove(path, *, dir_fd = None) 

Parameter: path: A path-like object representing a file path. A path-like object is either a string or bytes object representing a path. 

• dir_fd (optional): A file descriptor referring to a directory. The default value of this parameter is None. If the specified path is absolute then dir_fd is ignored. 

Note: The ‘*’ in parameter list indicates that all following parameters (Here in our case ‘dir_fd’) are keyword-only parameters and they can be provided using their name, not as positional parameter. 

Return Type: This method does not return any value.

Example 1: Delete a File in Python

Suppose the file contained in the folder are: 

We want to delete file1 from the above folder. Below is the implementation. 

Output: 

Example 2: Remove file with absolute path

If the specified path is a directory. 

Output:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "osremove.py", line 11, in 
    os.remove(path)
IsADirectoryError: [Errno 21] Is a directory: 'D:/Pycharm projects/w3wiki/Authors/Nikhil'

Example 3: Check if File Exists Before Deleting

Handling error while using os.remove() method.

Output:

[Errno 21] Is a directory: 'D:/Pycharm projects/w3wiki/Authors/Nikhil'
File path can not be removed

Note: To know more about os.remove() click here.

In this article, we will cover how to delete (remove) files and directories in Python. Python provides different methods and functions for removing files and directories. One can remove the file according to their need. 

Various methods provided by Python are –

• Using os.remove()
• Using os.rmdir()
• Using shutil.rmtree()
• Using pathlib.Path(empty_dir_path).rmdir()