Python os.path.splitext() method

Last Updated : 20 Mar, 2025

os.path.splitext() method is used to split the pathname into a pair (root, ext), where root is the part of the path before the file extension and ext is the file extension itself. It is particularly useful when you need to extract the file extension or handle files dynamically based on their type. os.path module is submodule of OS module in Python used for common pathname manipulation.

For example consider the following path names:

Path Name	Root	Extension
/home/User/Desktop/file.txt	/home/User/Desktop/file	.txt
/home/User/Desktop	/home/User/Desktop	(empty)
file.py	file	.py
.txt	(empty)	.txt

Example:

Let’s see a basic example of how os.path.splitext() works:

Python

import os  file_path = "example_file.txt"  # Splitting the file path root, ext = os.path.splitext(file_path)  print(f"Root: {root}")   print(f"Extension: {ext}")

Output

Root: example_file Extension: .txt

Explanation:

The file_path is “example_file.txt”.
The function splits it into root (“example_file”) and ext (“.txt”).

Syntax

os.path.splitext(path)

Parameters

path: The complete file path, which can be relative or absolute.

Return Value

The method returns a tuple with two elements:

root: The part of the path before the extension (file name without the extension).
ext: The file extension, including the dot (e.g., .txt, .jpg, .py).

Example of os.path.splitext() method

1. Using os.path.splitext() to Split Path into Root and Extension

Python

import os  # path path = '/home/User/Desktop/file.txt'  # Split the path in  # root and ext pair root_ext = os.path.splitext(path)  # print root and ext # of the specified path print("root part of '% s':" % path, root_ext[0]) print("ext part of '% s':" % path, root_ext[1], "\n")   # path path = '/home/User/Desktop/'  # Split the path in  # root and ext pair root_ext = os.path.splitext(path)  # print root and ext # of the specified path print("root part of '% s':" % path, root_ext[0]) print("ext part of '% s':" % path, root_ext[1])

Output

root part of '/home/User/Desktop/file.txt': /home/User/Desktop/file ext part of '/home/User/Desktop/file.txt': .txt   root part of '/home/User/Desktop/': /home/User/Desktop/ ext part of '/home/User/Desktop/':

Explanation:

The example demonstrates how to use os.path.splitext() to split a file path into its root and extension parts.
The first part of the code shows a path with a file extension, and the second part shows a path without a file extension (just a directory).

2. Path Without an Extension

If the file doesn’t have an extension, the function will return an empty string for the extension.

Python

import os  file_path = "example_file"  # Splitting the file path root, ext = os.path.splitext(file_path)  print(f"Root: {root}")   print(f"Extension: {ext}")

Output

Root: example_file Extension:

Explanation: Since “example_file” doesn’t have an extension, ext will be an empty string.

Python | os.path.supports_unicode_filenames object

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Python os.path.splitext() method

Syntax

Parameters

Return Value

Example of os.path.splitext() method

1. Using os.path.splitext() to Split Path into Root and Extension

2. Path Without an Extension

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