Walking up/down directory trees in Python

You can use the os.walk in Python to traverse a directory tree:

os.walk(top[, topdown=True[, onerror=None[, followlinks=False]]])

For example:

#!/usr/bin/python

import tarfile
import os

for dirpath, dirnames, filenames in os.walk("/tmp"):
     print dirnames

gives:

/tmp
/tmp/.vbox-amit-ipc
/tmp/ssh-zYrvo4322
/tmp/.ICE-unix
/tmp/kde-amit
/tmp/plugtmp-1
/tmp/acroread_1000_100

The output can be best understood when co-related with the o/p of tree.

Usage: A simple Python script to create a tar archive out of a directory is here