Is there a way to move many files quickly in Python?

Question

I have a little script that moves files around in my photo collection, but it runs a bit slow.

I think it's because I'm doing one file move at a time. I'm guessing I can speed this up if I do all file moves from one dir to another at the same time. Is there a way to do that?

If that's not the reason for my slowness, how else can I speed this up?

Update:

I don't think my problem is being understood. Perhaps, listing my source code will help explain:

# ORF is the file extension of the files I want to move;
# These files live in dirs shared by JPEG files,
# which I do not want to move.
import os
import re
from glob import glob
import shutil

DIGITAL_NEGATIVES_DIR = ...
DATE_PATTERN = re.compile('\d{4}-\d\d-\d\d')

# Move a single ORF.
def move_orf(src):
    dir, fn = os.path.split(src)
    shutil.move(src, os.path.join('raw', dir))

# Move all ORFs in a single directory.
def move_orfs_from_dir(src):
    orfs = glob(os.path.join(src, '*.ORF'))
    if not orfs:
        return
    os.mkdir(os.path.join('raw', src))
    print 'Moving %3d ORF files from %s to raw dir.' % (len(orfs), src)
    for orf in orfs:
        move_orf(orf)

# Scan for dirs that contain ORFs that need to be moved, and move them.
def main():
    os.chdir(DIGITAL_NEGATIVES_DIR)
    src_dirs = filter(DATE_PATTERN.match, os.listdir(os.curdir))
    for dir in src_dirs:
        move_orfs_from_dir(dir)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Answer 1

Edit:

In my own state of confusion (which JoshD helpfully remedied), I forgot that shutil.move accepts directories, so you can (and should) just use that to move your directory as a batch.

Answer 2

If you just want to move the directory, you can use shutil.move. It'll be pretty freakin' quick (if it's on the same filesystem) because it's just a rename operation.

Answer 3

What platform are you on? And does it really have to be Python? If not, you can simply use system tools like mv (*nix) , or move (windows).

$ stat -c "%s" file
382849574

$ time python -c 'import shutil;shutil.move("file","/tmp")'

real    0m29.698s
user    0m0.349s 
sys     0m1.862s 

$ time mv file /tmp

real    0m29.149s
user    0m0.011s 
sys     0m1.607s 

$ time python -c 'import shutil;shutil.move("file","/tmp")'

real    0m30.349s
user    0m0.349s 
sys     0m2.015s 

$ time mv file /tmp

real    0m28.292s
user    0m0.015s 
sys     0m1.702s 

$ cat test.py
#!/usr/bin/env python
import shutil
shutil.move("file","/tmp")
shutil.move("/tmp/file",".")

$ cat test.sh
#!/bin/bash
mv file /tmp
mv /tmp/file .

# time python test.py

real    1m1.175s
user    0m0.641s
sys     0m4.110s

$ time bash test.sh

real    1m1.040s
user    0m0.026s
sys     0m3.242s

$ time python test.py

real    1m3.348s
user    0m0.659s
sys     0m4.024s

$ time bash test.sh

real    1m1.740s
user    0m0.017s
sys     0m3.276s