How to get only the last part of a path in Python?

In Python, suppose I have a path like this:

/folderA/folderB/folderC/folderD/

How can I get just the folderD part?

Use os.path.normpath, then os.path.basename:

>>> os.path.basename(os.path.normpath('/folderA/folderB/folderC/folderD/'))
'folderD'

The first strips off any trailing slashes, the second gives you the last part of the path. Using only basename gives everything after the last slash, which in this case is ''.

With python 3 you can use the pathlib module (pathlib.PurePath for example):

>>> import pathlib

>>> path = pathlib.PurePath('/folderA/folderB/folderC/folderD/')
>>> path.name
'folderD'

If you want the last folder name where a file is located:

>>> path = pathlib.PurePath('/folderA/folderB/folderC/folderD/file.py')
>>> path.parent.name
'folderD'