shutil.rmtree raises "OSError: [Errno 39] Directory not empty" exception

[Tim Chase]

>      shutil.rmtree(filename)
>    File "/usr/lib64/python2.5/shutil.py", line 178, in rmtree
>      onerror(os.rmdir, path, sys.exc_info())
>    File "/usr/lib64/python2.5/shutil.py", line 176, in rmtree
>      os.rmdir(path)
> OSError: [Errno 39] Directory not empty: /path/to/my/dir
> 
> According to the documentation, shutil.rmtree should not care about  
> directory being not empty.

This sounds suspiciously like a permission issue.  rmtree() 
*should* walk the tree removing items *if it can*.  If a file 
can't be deleted, it treats it as an error.  rmtree() takes 
parameters for ignore_errors and an onerror callback function, so 
you can catch these error conditions.

-tkc