Pathy: a Path interface for local and cloud bucket storage

Pathy is a python package (with type annotations) for working with Cloud Bucket storage providers using a pathlib interface. It provides an easy-to-use API bundled with a CLI app for basic file operations between local files and remote buckets. It enables a smooth developer experience by letting developers work against the local file system during development and only switch over to live APIs for deployment. It also makes converting bucket blobs into local files a snap with optional local file caching.

🚀 Quickstart

You can install pathy from pip:

pip install pathy

The package exports the Pathy class and utilities for configuring the bucket storage provider to use.

from pathy import Pathy, use_fs
# Use the local file-system for quicker development
use_fs()
# Create a bucket
Pathy("gs://my_bucket").mkdir(exist_ok=True)
# An excellent blob
greeting = Pathy(f"gs://my_bucket/greeting.txt")
# But it doesn't exist yet
assert not greeting.exists()
# Create it by writing some text
greeting.write_text("Hello World!")
# Now it exists
assert greeting.exists()
# Delete it
greeting.unlink()
# Now it doesn't
assert not greeting.exists()

Supported Clouds

The table below details the supported cloud provider APIs.

Cloud Service	Support	Install Extras
Google Cloud Storage	✅	pip install pathy[gcs]
Amazon S3	✅	pip install pathy[s3]
Azure	✅	pip install pathy[azure]

Google Cloud Storage

Google recommends using a JSON credentials file, which you can specify by path:

from google.oauth2 import service_account
from pathy import set_client_params

credentials = service_account.Credentials.from_service_account_file("./my-creds.json")
set_client_params("gs", credentials=credentials)

Amazon S3

S3 uses a JSON credentials file, which you can specify by path:

from pathy import set_client_params

set_client_params("s3", key_id="YOUR_ACCESS_KEY_ID", key_secret="YOUR_ACCESS_SECRET")

Azure

Azure blob storage can be passed a connection_string:

from pathy import set_client_params

set_client_params("azure", connection_string="YOUR_CONNECTION_STRING")

or a BlobServiceClient instance:

from azure.storage.blob import BlobServiceClient
from pathy import set_client_params

service: BlobServiceClient = BlobServiceClient.from_connection_string(
    "YOUR_CONNECTION_STRING"
)
set_client_params("azure", service=service)

Semantic Versioning

Before Pathy reaches v1.0 the project is not guaranteed to have a consistent API, which means that types and classes may move around or be removed. That said, we try to be predictable when it comes to breaking changes, so the project uses semantic versioning to help users avoid breakage.

Specifically, new releases increase the patch semver component for new features and fixes, and the minor component when there are breaking changes. If you don't know much about semver strings, they're usually formatted {major}.{minor}.{patch} so increasing the patch component means incrementing the last number.

Consider a few examples:

From Version	To Version	Changes are Breaking
0.2.0	0.2.1	No
0.3.2	0.3.6	No
0.3.1	0.3.17	No
0.2.2	0.3.0	Yes

If you are concerned about breaking changes, you can pin the version in your requirements so that it does not go beyond the current semver minor component, for example if the current version was 0.1.37:

pathy>=0.1.37,<0.2.0

🎛 API

Pathy class

Pathy(self, args, kwargs)

Subclass of pathlib.Path that works with bucket APIs.

exists method

Pathy.exists(self) -> bool

Returns True if the path points to an existing bucket, blob, or prefix.

fluid classmethod

Pathy.fluid(
    path_candidate: Union[str, Pathy, BasePath],
) -> Union[Pathy, BasePath]

Infer either a Pathy or pathlib.Path from an input path or string.

The returned type is a union of the potential FluidPath types and will type-check correctly against the minimum overlapping APIs of all the input types.

If you need to use specific implementation details of a type, "narrow" the return of this function to the desired type, e.g.

from pathy import FluidPath, Pathy

fluid_path: FluidPath = Pathy.fluid("gs://my_bucket/foo.txt")
# Narrow the type to a specific class
assert isinstance(fluid_path, Pathy), "must be Pathy"
# Use a member specific to that class
assert fluid_path.prefix == "foo.txt/"

from_bucket classmethod

Pathy.from_bucket(bucket_name: str, scheme: str = 'gs') -> 'Pathy'

Initialize a Pathy from a bucket name. This helper adds a trailing slash and the appropriate prefix.

from pathy import Pathy

assert str(Pathy.from_bucket("one")) == "gs://one/"
assert str(Pathy.from_bucket("two")) == "gs://two/"

glob method

Pathy.glob(
    self: 'Pathy',
    pattern: str,
) -> Generator[Pathy, NoneType, NoneType]

Perform a glob match relative to this Pathy instance, yielding all matched blobs.

is_dir method

Pathy.is_dir(self: 'Pathy') -> bool

Determine if the path points to a bucket or a prefix of a given blob in the bucket.

Returns True if the path points to a bucket or a blob prefix. Returns False if it points to a blob or the path doesn't exist.

is_file method

Pathy.is_file(self: 'Pathy') -> bool

Determine if the path points to a blob in the bucket.

Returns True if the path points to a blob. Returns False if it points to a bucket or blob prefix, or if the path doesn’t exist.

iterdir method

Pathy.iterdir(
    self: 'Pathy',
) -> Generator[Pathy, NoneType, NoneType]

Iterate over the blobs found in the given bucket or blob prefix path.

ls method

Pathy.ls(self: 'Pathy') -> Generator[BlobStat, NoneType, NoneType]

List blob names with stat information under the given path.

This is considerably faster than using iterdir if you also need the stat information for the enumerated blobs.

Yields BlobStat objects for each found blob.

mkdir method

Pathy.mkdir(
    self,
    mode: int = 511,
    parents: bool = False,
    exist_ok: bool = False,
) -> None

Create a bucket from the given path. Since bucket APIs only have implicit folder structures (determined by the existence of a blob with an overlapping prefix) this does nothing other than create buckets.

If parents is False, the bucket will only be created if the path points to exactly the bucket and nothing else. If parents is true the bucket will be created even if the path points to a specific blob.

The mode param is ignored.

Raises FileExistsError if exist_ok is false and the bucket already exists.

open method

Pathy.open(
    self: 'Pathy',
    mode: str = 'r',
    buffering: int = 8192,
    encoding: Optional[str] = None,
    errors: Optional[str] = None,
    newline: Optional[str] = None,
) -> IO[Any]

Open the given blob for streaming. This delegates to the smart_open library that handles large file streaming for a number of bucket API providers.

owner method

Pathy.owner(self: 'Pathy') -> Optional[str]

Returns the name of the user that owns the bucket or blob this path points to. Returns None if the owner is unknown or not supported by the bucket API provider.

rename method

Pathy.rename(self: 'Pathy', target: Union[str, pathlib.PurePath]) -> 'Pathy'

Rename this path to the given target.

If the target exists and is a file, it will be replaced silently if the user has permission.

If path is a blob prefix, it will replace all the blobs with the same prefix to match the target prefix.

replace method

Pathy.replace(self: 'Pathy', target: Union[str, pathlib.PurePath]) -> 'Pathy'

Renames this path to the given target.

If target points to an existing path, it will be replaced.

resolve method

Pathy.resolve(self, strict: bool = False) -> 'Pathy'

Resolve the given path to remove any relative path specifiers.

from pathy import Pathy

path = Pathy("gs://my_bucket/folder/../blob")
assert path.resolve() == Pathy("gs://my_bucket/blob")

rglob method

Pathy.rglob(
    self: 'Pathy',
    pattern: str,
) -> Generator[Pathy, NoneType, NoneType]

Perform a recursive glob match relative to this Pathy instance, yielding all matched blobs. Imagine adding "**/" before a call to glob.

rmdir method

Pathy.rmdir(self: 'Pathy') -> None

Removes this bucket or blob prefix. It must be empty.

samefile method

Pathy.samefile(
    self: 'Pathy',
    other_path: Union[str, bytes, int, pathlib.Path],
) -> bool

Determine if this path points to the same location as other_path.

stat method

Pathy.stat(self: 'Pathy') -> pathy.BlobStat

Returns information about this bucket path.

to_local classmethod

Pathy.to_local(
    blob_path: Union[Pathy, str],
    recurse: bool = True,
) -> pathlib.Path

Download and cache either a blob or a set of blobs matching a prefix.

The cache is sensitive to the file updated time, and downloads new blobs as their updated timestamps change.

touch method

Pathy.touch(self: 'Pathy', mode: int = 438, exist_ok: bool = True) -> None

Create a blob at this path.

If the blob already exists, the function succeeds if exist_ok is true (and its modification time is updated to the current time), otherwise FileExistsError is raised.

BlobStat dataclass

BlobStat(
    self,
    name: str,
    size: Optional[int],
    last_modified: Optional[int],
) -> None

Stat for a bucket item

use_fs function

use_fs(
    root: Optional[str, pathlib.Path, bool] = None,
) -> Optional[pathy.BucketClientFS]

Use a path in the local file-system to store blobs and buckets.

This is useful for development and testing situations, and for embedded applications.

get_fs_client function

get_fs_client() -> Optional[pathy.BucketClientFS]

Get the file-system client (or None)

use_fs_cache function

use_fs_cache(
    root: Optional[str, pathlib.Path, bool] = None,
) -> Optional[pathlib.Path]

Use a path in the local file-system to cache blobs and buckets.

This is useful for when you want to avoid fetching large blobs multiple times, or need to pass a local file path to a third-party library.

get_fs_cache function

get_fs_cache() -> Optional[pathlib.Path]

Get the folder that holds file-system cached blobs and timestamps.

set_client_params function

set_client_params(scheme: str, kwargs: Any) -> None

Specify args to pass when instantiating a service-specific Client object. This allows for passing credentials in whatever way your underlying client library prefers.

CLI

Pathy command line interface. (v0.5.2)

Usage:

$ [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

Options:

• --install-completion: Install completion for the current shell.
• --show-completion: Show completion for the current shell, to copy it or customize the installation.
• --help: Show this message and exit.

Commands:

• cp: Copy a blob or folder of blobs from one...
• ls: List the blobs that exist at a given...
• mv: Move a blob or folder of blobs from one path...
• rm: Remove a blob or folder of blobs from a given...

cp

Copy a blob or folder of blobs from one bucket to another.

Usage:

$ cp [OPTIONS] FROM_LOCATION TO_LOCATION

Arguments:

• FROM_LOCATION: [required]
• TO_LOCATION: [required]

Options:

• --help: Show this message and exit.

ls

List the blobs that exist at a given location.

Usage:

$ ls [OPTIONS] LOCATION

Arguments:

• LOCATION: [required]

Options:

• -l, --long: Print long style entries with updated time and size shown. [default: False]
• --help: Show this message and exit.

mv

Move a blob or folder of blobs from one path to another.

Usage:

$ mv [OPTIONS] FROM_LOCATION TO_LOCATION

Arguments:

• FROM_LOCATION: [required]
• TO_LOCATION: [required]

Options:

• --help: Show this message and exit.

rm

Remove a blob or folder of blobs from a given location.

Usage:

$ rm [OPTIONS] LOCATION

Arguments:

• LOCATION: [required]

Options:

• -r, --recursive: Recursively remove files and folders. [default: False]
• -v, --verbose: Print removed files and folders. [default: False]
• --help: Show this message and exit.

Credits

Pathy is originally based on the S3Path project, which provides a Path interface for S3 buckets.