pythonfilefile-iofilesizetarfile

Size of an open file object


Is there a way to find the size of a file object that is currently open?

Specifically, I am working with the tarfile module to create tarfiles, but I don't want my tarfile to exceed a certain size. As far as I know, tarfile objects are file-like objects, so I imagine a generic solution would work.


Solution

  • $ ls -la chardet-1.0.1.tgz
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 vinko vinko 179218 2008-10-20 17:49 chardet-1.0.1.tgz
    $ python
    Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, Jul 31 2008, 22:53:39)
    [GCC 4.1.2 (Ubuntu 4.1.2-0ubuntu4)] on linux2
    Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
    >>> f = open('chardet-1.0.1.tgz','rb')
    >>> f.seek(0, os.SEEK_END)
    >>> f.tell()
    179218L
    

    Adding ChrisJY's idea to the example

    >>> import os
    >>> os.fstat(f.fileno()).st_size
    179218L
    >>>        
    

    Note: Based on the comments, f.seek(0, os.SEEK_END) is must before calling f.tell(), without which it would return a size of 0. The reason is that f.seek(0, os.SEEK_END) moves the file object's position to the end of the file.