Funky file contents when os.rename or os.remove are interrupted

[hg]

Russell Warren wrote:
> I've got a case where I'm seeing text files that are either all null
> characters, or are trailed with nulls due to interrupted file access
> resulting from an electrical power interruption on the WinXP pc.
> 
> In tracking it down, it seems that what is being interrupted is either
> os.remove(), or os.rename().  Has anyone seen this behaviour, or have
> any clue what is going on?
> 
> On first pass I would think that both of those calls are single step
> operations (removing/changing an entry in the FAT, or FAT-like thing,
> on the HDD) and wouldn't result in an intermediate, null-populated,
> step, but the evidence seems to indicate I'm wrong...
> 
> Any insight from someone with knowledge of the internal operations of
> os.remove and/or os.rename would be greatly appreciated, although I
> expect the crux may be at the os level and not in python.
> 
> Russ
> 
Taking a quick look at the code, it looks like MoveFileW (Windows API)
is eventually being called by posixmodule.c.

My gut feeling is that you are correct and not facing a Python but
Windows issue (sigh) ... you might want to test your problem on an NTFS
file system and see if the problems are similar.

Regards,

hg