Why exception from os.path.exists()?

[Gregory Ewing]

Chris Angelico wrote:
> I'd like to find out about that. If it doesn't work, it'll be easily
> provable that it can't be done.

Using the shell:

% touch colonic:name
% ls
colonic:name
% touch slashy/name
touch: slashy/name: No such file or directory

(It's trying to create a file in a directory called "slashy",
which doesn't exist.)

Using Python:

 >>> open("colonic:name", "w").close()
 >>> os.listdir(".")
['colonic:name']
 >>> open("slashy/name", "w").close()
Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'slashy/name'

(Same reason as before.)

Using the GUI: I tried to use TextEdit to save a file with
a colon in the name. When I typed ":" into the filename box,
it substituted "-".

I was able to type "slashy/textfile" into the filename box
and save. In the shell it shows as:

% ls
slashy:textfile.rtf

Is that proof enough for you?

-- 
Greg