Question

Write a recursive function, displayFiles, that expects a pathname as an argument. The path name can be either the name of a file or the name of a directory. If the pathname refers to a file, its filepath is displayed, followed by its contents, like so: File name: file_path Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit... Otherwise, if the pathname refers to a directory, the function is applied to each name in the directory, like so: Directory name: directory_path File name: file_path1 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet... File name: file_path2 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet... ... Test this function in a new program.

Answer 1

The following code will be used to write a recursive function and display files

Explanation:

#Import required packages

import os

#Define recursive function

#displayFiles() has a single argument

#which may be either pathname or filename

def displayFiles(pathname):

   #if the given argument is pathname for directory

   if (os.path.isdir(pathname)):

       #open the directory

       for item in os.listdir(pathname):

           #append items in the list

           newItem = os.path.join(pathname, item)

           #print each filename

           #call the function recursively

           displayFiles(newItem)    

   #otherwise if the pathname

   #is filename

   else:

       #set the pathname to filename

       filename=pathname

       baseFile = os.path.basename(filename)

       print("File Name: ", baseFile)

       #open the file in read mode

       with open(filename, "r") as file:

           print("Content:")

           #display the contents of the file

           for line in file:

               #print line

               print(line)

           print()