Detect file is locked - windows

[Hans Mulder]

On 14/11/12 11:02:45, Tim Golden wrote:
> On 14/11/2012 00:33, Ali Akhavan wrote:
>> I am trying to open a file in 'w' mode open('file', 'wb'). open()
>> will throw with IOError with errno 13 if the file is locked by
>> another application or if user does not have permission to open/write
>> to the file.
> 
> What version of Python are you using?
> 
>>
>> How can I distinguish these two cases ? Namely, if some application
>> has the file open or not.
> 
> Can I ask what you expect to do differently in each of those cases? In
> other words, if you can't access the file, you can't access it. (Not to
> dismiss your question; I just wonder how you're going to handle the
> different cases)

It would be nice if he could give specific error messages, e.g.

    "Can't write %s because it is locked by %s."

vs.

    "Can't write %s because you don't have write access."

I can't speak for Ali, but I'm always annoyed by error messages
listing several possible cuases, such as "Can't delete file,
because the source or destination is in use".

-- HansM