How to read the most recent Excel export into a Pandas dataframe without specifying the file name?-CodePudding

I frequent a real estate website that shows recent transactions, from which I will download data to parse within a Pandas dataframe. Everything about this dataset remains identical every time I download it (regarding the column names, that is).

The name of the Excel output may change, though. For example, if I already have download a few of these in my Downloads folder, the file that's exported may read "Generic_File_(3)" or "Generic_File_(21)" if I already have a few older "Generic_File" exports in that folder from a previous export.

Ideally, I'd like my workflow to look like this: export this Excel file of real estate sales, then run a Python script to read in the most recent export as a Pandas dataframe. The catch is, I don't want to have to go in and change the filename in the script to match the appending number of the Excel export everytime. I want the pd.read_excel method to simply read the "Generic_File" that is appended with the largest number (which will obviously correspond to the most rent export).

I suppose I could always just delete old exports out of my Downloads folder so the newest, freshest export is always named the same ("Generic_File", in this case), but I'm looking for a way to ensure I don't have to do this. Are wildcards the best path forward, or is there some other method to always read in the most recently downloaded Excel file from my Downloads folder?

CodePudding user response：

I would use the OS package and create a method to read to file names in the downloads folder. Parsing string filenames you could then find the file following your specified format with the highest copy number. Something like the following might help you get started.

import os

downloads = os.listdir('C:/Users/[username here]/Downloads/')

is_file = [True if '.' in item else False for item in downloads]
files = [item for keep, item in zip(is_file, downloads) if keep]

** INSERT CODE HERE TO IDENTIFY THE FILE OF INTEREST **

Regex might be the best way to find matches if you have a diverse listing of files in your downloads folder.