[PYTHONMAC-SIG] os.rmdir()

[Guido van Rossum]

> I'm trying to delete a directory in a Python program (in preparation for
> unstuffing a new copy of it...)
> 
> I find that os.rmdir() fails with an unknown error 16.
> 
> I tried writing this little function to empty out a folder before deleting
> it.  It half-worked; one large portion of the tree was deleted, including
> many subdirectories, but still rmdir() refused to delete one directory
> which the Finder had no trouble trashing (so the directory was not corrupt).

Could it be that there is a hidden or locked file in there, or a file
that's in use?  Which operation fails?  The unlink or the rmdir?

A few nits on your code:


> def myrmdir(dirpath):
> 	#print 'deleting children of',dirpath
> 	if dirpath[-1] == os.sep: dirpath = dirpath[:-1]

 	^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Sure you need
	this?

> 	items = os.listdir(dirpath)
> 	for f in items:
> 		if f == '.' or f == '..': continue

  		^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ unnecessary;
		listdir no longer returns . or .. (and these are
		unixisms anyway -- on the mac they would be : and ::
		and would never be returned by listdir)

> 		path = dirpath + os.sep + f

Correct is:
 		path = os.path.join(dirpath, f)

> 		if os.path.isdir(path):
> 			myrmdir(path)
> 		else:
> 			#print 'deleting',path
> 			os.unlink(path)
> 	print 'deleting',dirpath
> 	os.rmdir(dirpath)

And finally...

> Any ideas?  Shall I dig into the source?

Of what?  It's almost certainly an OS issue, not a bug in rmdir.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

_______________
PYTHONMAC-SIG  - SIG on Python for the Apple Macintosh

send messages to: pythonmac-sig@python.org
administrivia to: pythonmac-sig-request@python.org
_______________