[Python-Dev] Extending os.chown() to accept user/group names

[Petri Lehtinen]

Nick Coghlan wrote:
> 2011/5/26 Charles-François Natali <neologix at free.fr>:
> > Then, I wonder why shutil.copytree and shutil.rmtree are provided.
> > Recursive rm/copy/chown/chmod are extremely useful in system
> > administration scripts. Furthermore, it's not as simple as it seems
> > because of symlinks, see for example http://bugs.python.org/issue4489
> 
> Rather than a fixed binary flag, I would suggest following the
> precedent of copytree and rmtree, and provide recursive functionality
> as a separate shutil function (i.e. shutil.chmodtree,
> shutil.chowntree).

+1

> As noted, while these *can* be written manually, it is convenient to
> have the logic for handling symlinks dealt with for you, as well as
> not having to look up the particular incantation for correctly linking
> os.walk and the relevant operations.

This is exactly what I meant when saying that the -R option to chown
and chmod shell commands is useful. I *could* do it without them, but
writing the same logic every time with error handling would be
cumbersome.

Petri