How to check if a path *could* be a legal path?

[Larry Bates]

It is much easier to put your code that would create the
path inside a try block and just have an exception that
handles the failure.  If most of the time the path is
legal, it is faster also.

Regards,
Larry Bates
Syscon, Inc.

"Maciej Sobczak" <no.spam at no.spam.com> wrote in message
news:c62ums$b3b$1 at atlantis.news.tpi.pl...
> Hi,
>
> I have a string.
> This string is to be used as a path for a new file.
> I would like to check if this string *could be* a valid file name,
> *before* I try to create the file itself.
> In other words, I would like to know whether some string violates the
> underlying OS's policies (or maybe some more restriced policies, but
> portable) considering file paths.
>
> Example:
>
> 1.
> s = 'C:\file.txt'
>
> the above is potentially a valid path on my system.
>
> 2.
> s = 'cc:/^- =#jk\kj+.+?! :-)'
>
> the above is rather invalid and I would like to check it somehow before
> I even try to create the file.
>
> Does the Python library contain a functionality that allows to achieve
> this goal?
>
> -- 
> Maciej Sobczak : http://www.msobczak.com/
> Programming    : http://www.msobczak.com/prog/
>