The shutil Module

The shutil utility module contains some functions for copying files and directories. The copy function used in Example 2-4 copies a file in pretty much the same way as the Unix cp command.

Example 2-4. Using the shutil Module to Copy Files

File: shutil-example-1.py import shutil import os for file in os.listdir("."): if os.path.splitext(file)[1] == ".py": print file shutil.copy(file, os.path.join("backup", file)) aifc-example-1.py anydbm-example-1.py array-example-1.py ...

The copytree function copies an entire directory tree (same as cp -r), and rmtree removes an entire tree (same as rm -r). These functions are illustrated in Example 2-5.

Example 2-5. Using the shutil Module to Copy and Remove Directory Trees

File: shutil-example-2.py import shutil import os SOURCE = "samples" BACKUP = "samples-bak" # create a backup directory shutil.copytree(SOURCE, BACKUP) print os.listdir(BACKUP) # remove it shutil.rmtree(BACKUP) print os.listdir(BACKUP) ['sample.wav', 'sample.jpg', 'sample.au', 'sample.msg', 'sample.tgz', ... Traceback (most recent call last): File "shutil-example-2.py", line 17, in ? print os.listdir(BACKUP) os.error: No such file or directory