Getting Started
===============

PyFilesystem is a Python-only module and can be installed with easy_install or by source. PyFilesystem is know to work on Linux, Mac and OSX.

Installing
----------

The easiest way to install PyFilesystem is with `easy_install <http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/EasyInstall>`_::

    easy_install fs

Add the -U switch if you want to upgrade a previous installation::

	easy_install -U fs

This will install the latest stable release. If you would prefer to install the cutting edge release then you can get the latest copy of the source via SVN::

    svn checkout http://pyfilesystem.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ pyfilesystem-read-only
    cd pyfilesystem-read-only
    python setup.py install

You should now have the `fs` module on your path:

    >>> import fs
    >>> fs.__version__
    '0.3.0'

Prerequisites
-------------

PyFilesystem requires at least **Python 2.4**. There are a few other dependencies if you want to use some of the more advanced filesystem interfaces, but for basic use all that is needed is the Python standard library.

    * wxPython (required for fs.browsewin) http://www.wxpython.org/
    * Boto (required for fs.s3fs) http://code.google.com/p/boto/
    * Paramikio (required for fs.ftpfs) http://www.lag.net/paramiko/    


Quick Examples
--------------

Before you dive in to the API documentation, here are a few interesting things you can do with pyFilesystem.

The following will list all the files in your home directory::

    >>> from fs.osfs import OSFS
    >>> home_fs = OSFS('~/') # 'c:\Users\<login name>' on Windows
    >>> home_fs.listdir()
    
Here's how to browse your home folder with a graphical interface::
    
	>>> home_fs.browse()
    
This will display the total number of bytes store in '.py' files your home directory::

    >>> sum(home_fs.getsize(f) for f in home_fs.walkfiles(wildcard='*.py'))