ospathgetsize

os.path.getsize is a function in the Python standard library that returns the size of a file, in bytes, for the given path. It accepts a path-like object and returns an integer representing the file size. The function delegates to the operating system via os.stat and follows symbolic links, so the reported size corresponds to the target file. If you need the size of the symlink itself, you would use os.lstat instead.

Arguments and return value: The function takes a single parameter, path, which can be a string, bytes, or any object that implements the os.fspath protocol (such as pathlib.Path). It returns an int representing the size in bytes of the file pointed to by the path. Path-like objects such as pathlib.Path are supported.

Exceptions and error handling: getsize raises OSError (including subtypes such as FileNotFoundError, PermissionError, or IsADirectoryError on some systems) if the path cannot be accessed or does not exist. A TypeError may be raised if the path argument cannot be converted to a path string. Behavior can vary slightly across platforms due to differences in the underlying filesystem and stat semantics.

Usage notes: The size returned for directories is platform-dependent and generally not meaningful for directory sizing. To determine the total size of a directory’s contents, a recursive traversal is required. Since getsize follows symlinks, it reports the size of the target file; to obtain the link’s own size, use os.lstat.

See also: os.stat, os.lstat, pathlib.Path, os.path. Example usage: size = os.path.getsize("example.txt").