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Extracting extension from filename in Python

By Sapna Deraje Radhakrishna Last updated : December 21, 2024

Python provides built in module to extract the file extension from the file name.

Before Python 3

The os.path module provides a function called splitext method, which splits the pathname path into file name and file extension.

Example

>>> import os
>>> file_name = 'includehelp.txt'
>>> print(os.path.splitext(file_name))
('includehelp', '.txt')
>>> 

After Python 3

In the path from pathlib, using the suffix method.

Example

from pathlib import Path

# Define the file name
file_name = "example.txt"

# Get the file extension
file_extension = Path(file_name).suffix

# Print the file extension
print(file_extension)

Output

.txt