Problems with shutil.move() and copy()

Question

I've read a few articles on Stackoverflow about shutil.move, copy and rename. Using those references, I still can't seem to execute this script without errors under a Windows 7 Professional environment using Python 2.7.

What am I doing wrong here?

 import shutil

 shutil.move('C:/Data/Download/Somefile.txt.zip','C:/Data/Archive/')

Error:

No such file or directory: C:/Data/Download/Somefile.txt.zip

I've tried //, \ and other paths with no result. What am I missing here?

Here is the reference script I was using:

import shutil
import os

source = os.listdir("/tmp/")
destination = "/tmp/newfolder/"

for files in source:
    if files.endswith(".txt"):
        shutil.copy(files,destination)

Did you try `r'C:\Data\Download\Somefile.txt.zip'`? (note the leading `r`) — SethMMorton, Jun 04 '14 at 18:12
File confirmed to exist. You think it may not be able to see it? — Fastidious, Jun 04 '14 at 18:15
Got it working with that. Thanks! I knew the code was pretty much right and I was going out my mind on the small things. :D — Fastidious, Jun 04 '14 at 18:17

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:12

4

For more reliable path construction, I highly recommend os.path.join:

from os.path import join
import shutil

source = join('C', 'Data', 'Download', 'Somefile.txt.zip')
destination = join('C', 'Data', 'Archive')
shutil.move(source, destination)

join is relatively portable between different platforms, and you bypass all of the pain points associated with slashes, backslashes, and escapes. Additionally, it lets you treat paths as what they are, instead of using a string as a proxy for a path.

You can also check out this answer for some more pros.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:12

Community

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answered Jun 04 '14 at 18:19

huu

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Why do you recommend join? As in the pros/cons? – Fastidious Jun 04 '14 at 18:21
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Ahh very cool. That's a good suggestion because this is a Windows environment moving data from a Linux one. – Fastidious Jun 04 '14 at 18:41

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 04 '14 at 18:18

0

import shutil

 shutil.move(r'C:/Data/Download/Somefile.txt.zip','C:/Data/Archive/')

answered Jun 04 '14 at 18:18

Fastidious

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Problems with shutil.move() and copy()

2 Answers2