Breaking the barrier of a broken paradigm... part 1

[john s.]

On Mar 25, 6:34 am, Bryan Olson <fakeaddr... at nowhere.org> wrote:
> john s. wrote:
> > #/usr/bin/enviro python
>
> > #Purpose - a dropped in useracct/pass file is on a new server to build
> > #a cluster... Alas there are no home directories..  Let me rip through
> > #the passfile, grab the correct field (or build it) and use it to make
> > #the directory!
>
> > import os, sys, string, copy, getopt, linecache
> > from traceback import format_exception
>
> > #The file we read in...
> > fileHandle = "/etc/passwd"
> > srcFile = open(fileHandle,'r')
> > srcList = srcFile.readlines()
>
> > #yah, a for loop that "iterates" through the file of "lines"
> > for i in srcList:
>
> Convention is that the name i is for an integer.
just a bit of silly walk on my part in the comment field...
>
> >     strUsr = string.split(i,":")
> >     theUsr = strUsr[0]
> >     usrHome = "/expirt/home/",theUsr,"/"
> >     usrHome = ''.join(usrHome)
>
> As Ryan noted, os.path is the favored way.
>
> >     print "printing usrHome:",usrHome
> >     print "is it a dir?: ", os.path.isdir(usrHome)
> > #try to test if it's a dir... for some reason this mis-behaves...
> > #maybe I'm not thinking about it correctly..
>
> >     if os.path.isdir(usrHome) != 'False':
>
> That should always evaluate true. False != 'False'. I think you want:
ok... yes I do

>
>      if not os.path.exists(usrHome):
> >         print "User Home dir doesn't exist creating."
> >         try:
> >             os.makedirs(usrHome)
> >             os.system('/usr/bin/chmod 750 ' + usrHome)
> >             os.system('/usr/bin/chown ' + theUsr + ' ' + usrHome)
> >         except Exception, e:
> >             print e
>
> I don't think you want to catch the exception there. If creating the dir
> fails, the next bits of code should not execute.
ok. I see that now.

>
> > #OMG, there is directory that happens to already exist! well,
> > #love for the queen dictates we provide "due
> > #dilligence", (e.g. wipe our asses properly)
>
> The path could exist but not be a directory.

So isadir is slightly better then exists?
It felt like it was not working right...
(probably because I was double testing the exp I see now)

>
> >     else:
> >         print "User Home dir exist, checking and fixing permissions."
> > sys.exit("Thanks for using pyDirFixr...")
>
> Given the Unixy nature of your code, you probably want to sys.exit(0)
> for success and 1 or 2 for failure.
got it. I'm guessing I'm better off with a last line print "g'bye"
then sys.exit versus trying both at once...

>
> Happy hacking,
> --
> --Bryan
Thanks Bryan :)
-John