[Tutor] Copy without overwrite?

[Lloyd Hugh Allen]

By "don't use else", what I meant was "don't use except without arguments."

Sorry.

See http://docs.python.org/ref/try.html and/or
http://skunkweb.sourceforge.net/stmlrefer/node19.html


On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 06:53:05 -0400, Lloyd Hugh Allen
<chandrakirti at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't know whether this would be considered to be cheating (thePath
> is a string containing the relevant path; theFile was created by
> opening and reading the old file):
> 
> def notOverwrite(thePath, theFile):
>     try:
>         attempt = open(thePath)   #default argument for mode is 'r', read
>         attempt.close()    #we successfully opened thePath. It exists.
> Leave it alone.
>     except IOError:
>         newFile = open(thePath, 'w')
>                                      #if we're here, then we weren't
> allowed to read the old file
>                                      #PROBABLYbecause it wasn't there.
> It would be worth
>                                      #putting this in another try in
> case the file is protected or exists
>                                      #but we don't have read/write
> permission; I'm not sure how to tell
>                                      #(easily) whether it exists if we
> don't have read, unless we have
>                                      #read access to the directory in
> order to manually check the dir.
>         data = theFile.read()
>         newFile.write(data)
>         newFile.close()
> 
> ######
> also ensure that you close theFile. The try/except is very, very
> powerful; but like I tried to say in the comment, try to be aware of
> all the cases in which your statement will raise that particular
> exception. And don't use else, unless you enjoy spending lots of time
> guessing why your program is doing unpredictable (and wrong) things.
> 
> I thougt that I wrote something about being totally hosed as far as
> applying this function within a path for which you have access
> permission and write permission but not read permission (a drop box),
> but I don't see that explicitly looking back through my message. I
> would only feel comfortable applying this if you have "7" permission
> (read/write/access) to the directory and "6" (read/write) permission
> to the file.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 11:59:29 +0200, Bernard Lebel
> <python at bernardlebel.com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > Is there a simple way to copy files and directory without any overwriting if the destination tree
> > structure contains files and directory of the same name? Basically that would just add new elements
> > to the destination structure, and leave the existing structure intact.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Bernard
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Tutor maillist  -  Tutor at python.org
> > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
> >
>