[Tutor] Problem recognizing '{' character?

[Ben Hunter]

Hi,

I'm completing the Python lessons on YouTube that Google posted. At the end
of section 2 of day 2, there is a task to identify files then put them in a
zip file in any directory. The code is from the 'solution' folder, so it's
not something I wrote. I suspect I have a problem with PATHS or environment
variables. I'm new to programming in something as advanced as Python, but I
do okay with VBA - so I just feel like there's a setting up issue somewhere.
I'm on Windows 7, tried running this in Idle and from the command line.

These two work perfectly.

def get_special_paths(dirname):
  result = []
  paths = os.listdir(dirname)  # list of paths in that dir
  for fname in paths:
    match = re.search(r'__(\w+)__', fname)
    if match:
      result.append(os.path.abspath(os.path.join(dirname, fname)))
  return result


def copy_to(paths, to_dir):
  if not os.path.exists(to_dir):
    os.mkdir(to_dir)
  for path in paths:
    fname = os.path.basename(path)
    shutil.copy(path, os.path.join(to_dir, fname))

This third one does not.

def zip_to(paths, zipfile):
  """Zip up all of the given files into a new zip file with the given
name."""
  cmd = 'zip -j ' + zipfile + ' ' + ' '.join(paths)
  print "Command I'm going to do:" + cmd
  (status, output) = commands.getstatusoutput(cmd)
  # If command had a problem (status is non-zero),
  # print its output to stderr and exit.
  if status:
    sys.stderr.write(output)
    sys.exit(1)

My command is this: >>> copyspecial.zip_to(paths, 'zippy')

But something goes wrong and it spits this out:
'{' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
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