Python: Get URL path sections

The best option is to use the posixpath module when working with the path component of URLs. This module has the same interface as os.path and consistently operates on POSIX paths when used on POSIX and Windows NT based platforms.

Sample Code:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import urllib.parse
import sys
import posixpath
import ntpath
import json

def path_parse( path_string, *, normalize = True, module = posixpath ):
    result = []
    if normalize:
        tmp = module.normpath( path_string )
    else:
        tmp = path_string
    while tmp != "/":
        ( tmp, item ) = module.split( tmp )
        result.insert( 0, item )
    return result

def dump_array( array ):
    string = "[ "
    for index, item in enumerate( array ):
        if index > 0:
            string += ", "
        string += ""{}"".format( item )
    string += " ]"
    return string

def test_url( url, *, normalize = True, module = posixpath ):
    url_parsed = urllib.parse.urlparse( url )
    path_parsed = path_parse( urllib.parse.unquote( url_parsed.path ),
        normalize=normalize, module=module )
    sys.stdout.write( "{}n  --[n={},m={}]-->n    {}n".format( 
        url, normalize, module.__name__, dump_array( path_parsed ) ) )

test_url( "http://eg.com/hithere/something/else" )
test_url( "http://eg.com/hithere/something/else/" )
test_url( "http://eg.com/hithere/something/else/", normalize = False )
test_url( "http://eg.com/hithere/../else" )
test_url( "http://eg.com/hithere/../else", normalize = False )
test_url( "http://eg.com/hithere/../../else" )
test_url( "http://eg.com/hithere/../../else", normalize = False )
test_url( "http://eg.com/hithere/something/./else" )
test_url( "http://eg.com/hithere/something/./else", normalize = False )
test_url( "http://eg.com/hithere/something/./else/./" )
test_url( "http://eg.com/hithere/something/./else/./", normalize = False )

test_url( "http://eg.com/see%5C/if%5C/this%5C/works", normalize = False )
test_url( "http://eg.com/see%5C/if%5C/this%5C/works", normalize = False,
    module = ntpath )

Code output:

http://eg.com/hithere/something/else
  --[n=True,m=posixpath]-->
    [ "hithere", "something", "else" ]
http://eg.com/hithere/something/else/
  --[n=True,m=posixpath]-->
    [ "hithere", "something", "else" ]
http://eg.com/hithere/something/else/
  --[n=False,m=posixpath]-->
    [ "hithere", "something", "else", "" ]
http://eg.com/hithere/../else
  --[n=True,m=posixpath]-->
    [ "else" ]
http://eg.com/hithere/../else
  --[n=False,m=posixpath]-->
    [ "hithere", "..", "else" ]
http://eg.com/hithere/../../else
  --[n=True,m=posixpath]-->
    [ "else" ]
http://eg.com/hithere/../../else
  --[n=False,m=posixpath]-->
    [ "hithere", "..", "..", "else" ]
http://eg.com/hithere/something/./else
  --[n=True,m=posixpath]-->
    [ "hithere", "something", "else" ]
http://eg.com/hithere/something/./else
  --[n=False,m=posixpath]-->
    [ "hithere", "something", ".", "else" ]
http://eg.com/hithere/something/./else/./
  --[n=True,m=posixpath]-->
    [ "hithere", "something", "else" ]
http://eg.com/hithere/something/./else/./
  --[n=False,m=posixpath]-->
    [ "hithere", "something", ".", "else", ".", "" ]
http://eg.com/see%5C/if%5C/this%5C/works
  --[n=False,m=posixpath]-->
    [ "see", "if", "this", "works" ]
http://eg.com/see%5C/if%5C/this%5C/works
  --[n=False,m=ntpath]-->
    [ "see", "if", "this", "works" ]

Notes:

• On Windows NT based platforms os.path is ntpath
• On Unix/Posix based platforms os.path is posixpath
• ntpath will not handle backslashes () correctly (see last two cases in code/output) – which is why posixpath is recommended.
• remember to use urllib.parse.unquote
• consider using posixpath.normpath
• The semantics of multiple path separators (/) is not defined by RFC 3986. However, posixpath collapses multiple adjacent path separators (i.e. it treats ///, // and / the same)
• Even though POSIX and URL paths have similar syntax and semantics, they are not identical.

Normative References:

• IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 – Vol. 1: Base Definitions – Section 4.12: Pathname Resolution
• The GNU C Library Reference Manual – Section 11.2: File Names
• IETF RFC 3986: Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax – Section 3.3: Path
• IETF RFC 3986: Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax – Section 6: Normalization and Comparison
• Wikipedia: URL normalization

A combination of urlparse and os.path.split will do the trick. The following script stores all sections of a url in a list, backwards.

import os.path, urlparse

def generate_sections_of_url(url):
    path = urlparse.urlparse(url).path
    sections = []; temp = "";
    while path != '/':
        temp = os.path.split(path)
        path = temp[0]
        sections.append(temp[1])
    return sections

This would return: [“else”, “something”, “hithere”]

import urlparse

output = urlparse.urlparse('http://www.example.com/temp/something/happen/index.html').path

output

'/temp/something/happen/index.html'

Split the path -- inbuilt rpartition func of string 

output.rpartition('/')[0]

'/temp/something/happen'

Python 3.4+ solution:

from urllib.parse import unquote, urlparse
from pathlib import PurePosixPath

url = 'http://www.example.com/hithere/something/else'

PurePosixPath(
    unquote(
        urlparse(
            url
        ).path
    )
).parts[1]

# returns 'hithere' (the same for the URL with parameters)

# parts holds ('/', 'hithere', 'something', 'else')
#               0    1          2            3

Note in Python3 import has changed to from urllib.parse import urlparse See documentation. Here is an example:

>>> from urllib.parse import urlparse
>>> url = 's3://bucket.test/my/file/directory'
>>> p = urlparse(url)
>>> p
ParseResult(scheme='s3', netloc='bucket.test', path='/my/file/directory', params='', query='', fragment='')
>>> p.scheme
's3'
>>> p.netloc
'bucket.test'
>>> p.path
'/my/file/directory'

Here is an example using urlparse and rpartition.

# Python 2x:
from urlparse import urlparse
# Python 3x:
from urllib.parse import urlparse

def printPathTokens(full_url):
    print('printPathTokens() called: %s' % full_url)

    p_full = urlparse(full_url).path

    print(' . p_full url: %s' % p_full)

    # Split the path using rpartition method of string
    # rpartition "returns a tuple containing the part the before separator,
    # argument string and the part after the separator" 
    (rp_left, rp_match, rp_right) = p_full.rpartition('/')

    if rp_match == '': # returns the rpartition separator if found
        print(' . No slashes found in path')
    else:
        print(' . path to last resource: %s' % rp_left)
        if rp_right == '': # Ended with a slash
            print(' . last resource: (none)')
        else:
            print(' . last resource: %s' % (rp_right))


printPathTokens('http://www.example.com/temp/something/happen/index.html')
# Output:
# printPathTokens() called: http://www.example.com/temp/something/happen/index.html
# . p_full url: /temp/something/happen/index.html
# . path to last resource: /temp/something/happen
# . last resource: index.html

printPathTokens('http://www.example.com/temp/something/happen/')
# Output:
# printPathTokens() called: http://www.example.com/temp/something/happen/
# . p_full url: /temp/something/happen/
# . path to last resource: /temp/something/happen
# . last resource: (none)

printPathTokens('http://www.example.com/temp/something/happen')
# Output:
# printPathTokens() called: http://www.example.com/temp/something/happen
# . p_full url: /temp/something/happen
# . path to last resource: /temp/something
# . last resource: happen