[Tutor] copying files and regular expressions

[Danny Yoo]

On Mon, 1 May 2006, Alfonso wrote:

> I'm totally new to python. I would like to know, how can I copy files 
> using regular expressions (the equivalent in python to unix "cp 
> /home/mycount/*partialname* /home/mycount/directory/").

Hi Alfonso,

Just as a pedantic note: the above pattern you're using isn't quite a 
regular expression, but something less powerful called a "glob".

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glob

Knowing the common names of things matters sometimes just because we 
communicate through the shared meanings of words.  In this situation, it 
does help because it turns out there's a 'glob' module in Python's 
Standard Library:

     http://www.python.org/doc/lib/module-glob.html

I'm not sure how familiar you are with using the Standard Library.  Have 
you used modules before?

The shell utilities defined in the 'shutil' module should also be helpful 
to let you copy files from one path to another:

     http://www.python.org/doc/lib/module-shutil.html

Best of wishes to you!