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Checks if a file exists at the specified filepath and prints a formatted status message with a description.

Purpose

This utility function verifies file existence using pathlib.Path and provides user-friendly console feedback with checkmark/cross emojis. It's commonly used in setup scripts, validation routines, or pre-flight checks to ensure required files are present before proceeding with operations.

Source Code

def check_file_exists(filepath, description):
    """Check if a file exists."""
    if Path(filepath).exists():
        print(f"✅ {description} - Found")
        return True
    else:
        print(f"❌ {description} - Not found")
        return False

Parameters

Parameter Details

filepath: String or Path-like object representing the path to the file to check. Can be absolute or relative path. Accepts any path format that pathlib.Path can handle (e.g., '/home/user/file.txt', 'data/config.json', Path object).

description: String describing the file being checked, used in the console output message. Should be a human-readable label (e.g., 'Configuration file', 'Input dataset', 'Model weights').

Return Value

Returns a boolean value: True if the file exists at the specified filepath, False if it does not exist. This allows the function to be used in conditional statements for flow control.

Dependencies

• pathlib

Required Imports

from pathlib import Path

Usage Example

from pathlib import Path

def check_file_exists(filepath, description):
    """Check if a file exists."""
    if Path(filepath).exists():
        print(f"✅ {description} - Found")
        return True
    else:
        print(f"❌ {description} - Not found")
        return False

# Example usage
config_exists = check_file_exists('config.json', 'Configuration file')
if config_exists:
    print('Proceeding with configuration...')
else:
    print('Please create config.json first')

# Check multiple files
files_to_check = [
    ('data/input.csv', 'Input data'),
    ('models/weights.h5', 'Model weights'),
    ('.env', 'Environment variables')
]

all_present = all(check_file_exists(path, desc) for path, desc in files_to_check)

Best Practices

• Use this function for validation checks before file operations to provide clear user feedback
• The function checks existence only, not whether the path is a file vs directory - use Path.is_file() if you need to distinguish
• Consider wrapping in try-except if checking paths with permission issues or invalid characters
• The description parameter should be concise and descriptive for clear console output
• This function has side effects (prints to console) - consider separating validation logic from output if you need silent checks
• For checking multiple files, consider collecting results before printing to provide a summary
• The function works with both files and directories since Path.exists() returns True for both - use Path.is_file() if you specifically need to verify it's a file

Tags

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