[issue7017] os.listdir behaviour

[Chris Adamson]

New submission from Chris Adamson <cadamson at internode.on.net>:

When I iterate through a list created using os.listdir it seems to grow
as I create files in that directory. I want a static copy of the list of
files in the directory prior to me writing new files into it.

Here is my code:

fileList = os.listdir(temporaryDirectory)

for curFile in fileList:
   # print the file list to see if it is indeed growing
   print FileList
   fp = file(os.path.join(temporaryDirectory, "." + curFile), 'w')
   # write stuff
   fp.close()

Here is the output:

['a', 'b', 'c']
['a', 'b', 'c', '.a']
['a', 'b', 'c', '.a', '.b']
['a', 'b', 'c', '.a', '.b', '.c']

So the list is growing and eventually curFile iterates through the list
of files that were created. This behaviour was unwanted in my case and I
couldn't find any documentation about this.

----------
components: None
messages: 93255
nosy: bigaddo
severity: normal
status: open
title: os.listdir behaviour
type: behavior
versions: Python 2.6

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue7017>
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