python 3 and shutil.copy2

[lance bermudez]

on windows trying to copy python3_files to python dir. Can not use xcopy on this version of windows and need it to be cross platform.


import os
import shutil
os.chdir('C:/Users/l_bermudez/Documents')
os.listdir('.')
shutil.copy2('C:/Users/l_bermudez/Documents/python3_files', 'C:/Users/l_bermudez/Documents/python')


error is


Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:/Users/l_bermudez/Documents/pythontest1.py", line 5, in <module>
shutil.copy2('C:/Users/l_bermudez/Documents/python3_files', 'C:/Users/l_bermudez/Documents/python')
File "C:\Python34\lib\shutil.py", line 244, in copy2
copyfile(src, dst, follow_symlinks=follow_symlinks)
File "C:\Python34\lib\shutil.py", line 107, in copyfile
with open(src, 'rb') as fsrc:
PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: 'C:/Users/l_bermudez/Documents/python3_files'

[Holger_Gehrke]

Is the source argument 'C:/Users/l_bermudez/Documents/python3_files' a directory ? Then you're trying to use a file-copy function on a directory, which obviously doesn't work. You'd probably want 'copytree()' which recursively copies directories instead of 'copy2' which copies files and tries to preserve as much metadata as it can.

[lance bermudez]

I changed my code to get some output but it will still not show the files as they are copied over.


import os
import shutil

ls=os.listdir('.')#list current dir
print('listing current dir\n')
print(ls)
os.chdir('C:/Users/lance/Documents')
print('\nchanging dir to Documents\n')
nls=os.listdir('.')
print(nls)

print('\nmoving new python dir in Documents\n')
event=shutil.copytree('C:/Users/lance/Documents/python3_files', 'C:/Users/lance/Documents/python')
output = event.communicate()
print(output)


the error i get is


Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users\lance\Documents\pcopy.py", line 20, in <module>
output = event.communicate()
AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'communicate'

[ofnuts]

The copytree doc (https://docs.python.org/3/library/shutil.html) says it returns the destination argument... what makes you think it returns an "event"?

[lance bermudez]

I do not know. I was told to use it because it would show the files as they are copied over to the other dir. As I have said I must have been told wrong because it does not work. Now that I think about it if I can not see the files as they are moving then I need some kind of progress bar.

[ofnuts]

It wouldn't be very difficult to replace the one-shot copy tree by individual copy operations for each file. Then you would be able to add progress monitoring.

[lance bermudez]

I know I must be a pain to you but thank you for helping this newbie. Just so I'm clear change the folder tree copy(shutil.copytree) to the single files in the folder (shutil.copy2). I can do that no problem if that is what you are talking about. I was also told that I needed a gui library. I did not know if I even needed one. I was thinking something from the command line but when it come right down to it what ever will be the easiest and work on Windows and Linux. I did not know it was this complex. I have used python for years but just started learning to write my own code instead of having a someone do it for me. The reason I want to see the files or have a progress bar is to know that the script is running and not stuck. I hope this helps you understand what I'm looking for and thank you for your time. I need all the help I can get.

[ofnuts]

You don't need a GUI library if it's a command-line script...
This whole thing isn't complex per se, as a programming exercise, it's even very simple. But programming is complex, because you have to think about all the little details and make sure that you haven't forgotten anything, because computers aren't very forbidding machines for programmers. What you want the program to do must also be very clear in your head. After that writing the actual code is somewhat trivial.


To solve your problem, you write a function that takes a directory as argument;that does:

creates the corresponding target directory
obtains a list of the source directory contents (os.listdir())
for each item in this list:

if it is a directory (os.path.isdir()), calls itself with that directory
if it's a file, prints the file and uses shutil.copyfile() to copy the file



Then all your programs need to do is call this function with your source directory.