Find free disk space in python on OS/X

Question

Hey guys,

I'm looking for the number of free bytes on my HD, but have trouble doing so on python.

I've tried the following:

import os

stat = os.statvfs(path)
print stat.f_bsize * stat.f_bavail

But, on OS/X it gives me a 17529020874752 bytes, which is about about 1.6 TB, which would be very nice, but unfortunately not really true.

What's the best way to get to this figure?

Answer 1

What's wrong with

import subprocess
proc= subprocess.Popen( "df", stdout=subprocess.PIPE )
proc.stdout.read()
proc.wait()

Answer 2

Try using f_frsize instead of f_bsize.

>>> s = os.statvfs('/')
>>> (s.f_bavail * s.f_frsize) / 1024
23836592L
>>> os.system('df -k /')
Filesystem   1024-blocks     Used Available Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2   116884912 92792320  23836592    80%    /

Answer 3

It's not OS-independent, but this works on Linux, and probably on OS X as well:

print commands.getoutput('df .').split('\n')[1].split()[3]

How does it work? It gets the output of the 'df .' command, which gives you disk information about the partition of which the current directory is a part, splits it into two lines (just as it is printed to the screen), then takes the second line of that (by appending [1] after the first split()), then splits that line into different whitespace-separated pieces, and, finally, gives you the 4th element in that list.

>>> commands.getoutput('df .')
'Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on\n/dev/sda3             80416836  61324872  15039168  81% /'

>>> commands.getoutput('df .').split('\n')
['Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on', '/dev/sda3             80416836  61324908  15039132  81% /']

>>> commands.getoutput('df .').split('\n')[1]
'/dev/sda3             80416836  61324908  15039132  81% /'

>>> commands.getoutput('df .').split('\n')[1].split()
['/dev/sda3', '80416836', '61324912', '15039128', '81%', '/']

>>> commands.getoutput('df .').split('\n')[1].split()[3]
'15039128'

>>> print commands.getoutput('df .').split('\n')[1].split()[3]
15039128