Why Can't I Delete a File I Created with Win XP?

[W. eWatson]

The program code is not mine, but I wanted to modify it to produce an 
Analysis folder when the user wants histogram file, basically, a txt 
file to appear in Analysis.

Elsewhere in the program this is done for another type of data that is 
directed to an Events folder. I figured I could copy the code from there 
and use it here. Here's other code for Events.
         # He's building a time stamp for the file name.
         # I'll use this with a slight modification to the name in
         # my code
         millisecs = int((event_time - int(event_time))*100)
         s = "v%4d%02d%02d_%02d%02d%02d.%02d.dat" % (
             t.tm_year, t.tm_mon, t.tm_mday,
             t.tm_hour, t.tm_min, t.tm_sec, millisecs )
	#OK, he's got the file name assembled
         s = os.path.join("Events",s)
         if not os.path.exists("Events"):
             os.mkdir("Events")
         f = file( s, "wb" )
         if not f:
             self.LogError( "File creation error 1" )
             return False

I caused the redundancy by just changing the meaning of s with a new 
statement below it. I should have commented the first one out. Yeah, I 
probably screwed up here and should have and,for purposes of debugging, 
just used another file name like s="ADATAFILE2009_mmdd.txt", which does 
not exist at this point of the coding stage. So I should have produced
Analysis\ADATAFILE2009_mmdd.txt. If I had done that then I would have 
ended up with an empty file in the Analysis folder. However, even at 
that, why can't I delete this empty file called Analysis?

When I said I was able to get rid of the "file", it's probably because I 
had rebooted at some time after I puzzled over the problem, and now OS 
somehow released it's grip, that is, whatever process was trying to use 
the "file" too.


John Machin wrote:
> On Dec 5, 9:57 pm, "W. eWatson" <wolftra... at invalid.com> wrote:
> [snip]
>>          s = self.current_path
> s referred to something ...
>>          s = "Analysis"
> but now s refers to "Analysis" ... at best, there is redundant &
> confusing code; at worst, the source of your problem.
> 
>>          s = os.path.join("Analysis",s)

> and now s refers to r"Analysis\Analysis" (on your platform)
>>          print "s joined ",s    <------------- debug print
> 
> [snip]
> 
>> There is no file created, just the folders Analysis\Analysis. One too
>> many. The second Analysis shows as an icon for a file of size 0KB.
>>
>> I printed with the debug print above:
>>    Path for Histogram Events\v20070206_055012.06.dat
>>    s joined  
>> Analysis\Analysis should only be Analysis.
> 
> Huh?? s = os.path.join("fubar", "fubar") should produce r"fubar
> \fubar" (as documented) ... If you don't want s to refer to r"Analysis
> \Analysis", then quite simply don't do that!
>