How to Resolve 'Check if Generator Is Empty Error' in Python

You can "Python check if generator is empty" by using multiple methods and approaches. It has a set of built-in library objects and functions to help us with this task. In this tutorial, we will learn how to check if a file or directory is empty in Python.

What is "Python check if generator is empty"

Python is a scripting language that has made it extremely easy to create new programming languages. Python allows us to develop many different kinds of programs, including bytecode-based interpreters, applications, and libraries. Basically, python generators are the simplest way to create iterators.

Why "Python check if generator is empty"

When we would like to check if a path is empty or not, we will want to know if it is a file or a directory, as this affects the approach we want to use. Let's say we have two placeholder variables dirpath and filepath identifying a local directory and file:

dirpath="/mnt/f/code.books/articles/python"
filepath="/mnt/f/code.books/articles/python/code/file_dir.py"

Solution 1: Using os.path

Python provides the os module which is a standard Python package of functions, objects, and constants for working with the operating system.

os.path provides us with the isfile()and isdir() functions to effortlessly distinguish between a file and the given directory:

import os

dirpath="/mnt/f/code.books/articles/python"
filepath="/mnt/f/code.books/articles/python/code/file_dir.py"

os.path.isfile(dirpath) # False
os.path.isdir(dirpath) # True
os.path.isfile(filepath) # True
os.path.isdir(filepath) # False

Both functions return a Boolean value.

Solution 2: Using pathlib

Python 3.4 introduced the pathlib module, which provides an object-oriented interface for working with file systems.

pathlib simplifies working with file systems compared to os or os.path.

The Path class of the pathlib module accepts a path as an argument and returns a Path object, which can be easily queried or chained with methods and attributes:

from pathlib import Path

dirpath="/mnt/f/code.books/articles/python"
filepath="/mnt/f/code.books/articles/python/code/file_dir.py"

Path(dirpath).is_file() # False
Path(dirpath).is_dir() # True
Path(filepath).is_file() # True
Path(dirpath).is_file() # False

Here, we are checking if Paththe object is a file or directory instead.

Check if a file is empty

An empty file or zero-byte file is any file that contains no data or content. The file can be of any type. Some files (such as music files) may have no data, but still contain metadata (such as the author). These files cannot be considered empty files.

An empty file can be created quickly on Linux and macOS:

$ touch emptyfile

Or on Windows:

$ type nul > emptyfile

Let's define variables now – empty file and non-empty file pointing to an empty file that is zero bytes and a non-empty file that is one byte in size:

emptyfile="/mnt/f/code.books/articles/python/emptyfile"
nonemptyfile="/mnt/f/code.books/articles/python/onebytefile"

You can take a look at the types and sizes of given files:

$ ls -l -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Sep 10 18:06 emptyfile -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1 Sep 10 18:08 onebytefile $ file emptyfile emptyfile: empty $ file onebytefile onebytefile: very short file (no magic)

There is also another solution that uses os.stat. You can read more about that here.

Also published here.