Master filestools: Tree View, Diff, Watermark, and Curl-to-Requests in Python

In this tutorial, the author presents the filestools Python library, which provides four useful utilities for file handling and web request conversion.

Installation

Install the library with a single command:

pip install filestools --index-url https://pypi.org/simple/ -U

1. Tree‑style Directory Display

The tree_dir function recursively shows all files and folders in a specified directory, including their sizes. Example usage in a Windows CMD environment:

# Switch to D: drive
C:\Users\Administrator> D:
# Change to target directory
C:\Users\Administrator> cd C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\python三剑客\加盟店爬虫

In Jupyter Notebook:

from treedir.tree import tree_dir
tree_dir(r"C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\python三剑客\加盟店爬虫", m_level=7, no_calc=False)

The function accepts three parameters: path (directory path), m_level (maximum recursion depth, default 7), and no_calc (skip size calculation for deeper folders).

2. Text File Difference Comparison

The file_diff_compare function compares two text files and generates an HTML report highlighting changes (yellow for modifications, green for additions, red for deletions). Example:

from filediff.diff import file_diff_compare
file_diff_compare("a.txt", "b.txt")

The function supports seven optional arguments, such as diff_out (output HTML file name), max_width (line wrap width), numlines (context lines), show_all, and no_browser.

3. Image Watermarking

Use the add_mark function to add a textual watermark to an image. Example:

from watermarker.marker import add_mark
add_mark(file=r"C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\大学.jpg",
         out=r"C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\python三剑客\加盟店爬虫",
         mark="黄同学",
         opacity=0.2,
         angle=30,
         space=30)

Key parameters include file, mark, out, color, size, opacity, space, and angle.

4. Convert cURL to requests Code

The library can transform a cURL command into equivalent Python requests code using curl2py:

from curl2py.curlParseTool import curlCmdGenPyScript
curl_cmd = """curl 'http://www.shixi.com/search/index?key=python' \
  -H 'Connection: keep-alive' \
  -H 'Cache-Control: max-age=0' \
  ... (other headers) ...
"""
output = curlCmdGenPyScript(curl_cmd)
print(output)

The generated script can be copied directly into a Python project, simplifying request handling.

All four features have been tested and work as described.