I'm confused with file moving under python. Under windows commandline, if i have directory c:\a and a directory c:\b, i can do
move c:\a c:\b
which moves a to b result is directory structure c:\b\a
If I try this with os.rename or shutil.move:
os.rename("c:/a", "c:/b")
I get
WindowsError: [Error 17] Cannot create a file when that file already exists
If I move a single file under c:\a, it works.
In python how do i move a directory to another existing directory?
os.rename("c:/a", "c:/b/a")
is equivalent to
move c:\a c:\b
under windows commandline
os.rename("c:/a/", "c:/b"/) --> Changes the name of folder a in folder b
os.rename("c:/a/", "c:/b/a") --> Put folder b into folder a
When i need many file system operations I prefer using 'path' module:
http://pypi.python.org/pypi/path.py/2.2
It's quite a good and lightweight wrapper around built-in 'os.path' module.
Also code:
last_part = os.path.split(src)[1]
is a bit strange, cause there is special function for this:
last_part = os.path.basename(src)
You will need to state the full path it's being moved to:
src = 'C:\a'
dst_dir = 'C:\b'
last_part = os.path.split(src)[1]
os.rename(src, os.path.join(dst_dir, last_part))
Actually, it looks like shutil.move will do what you want by looking at its documentation:
If the destination is a directory or a symlink to a directory, the source is moved inside the directory.
(And its source.)
Using Twisted's FilePath:
from twisted.python.filepath import FilePath
FilePath("c:/a").moveTo(FilePath("c:/b/a"))
or, more generally:
from twisted.python.filepath import FilePath
def moveToExistingDir(fileOrDir, existingDir):
fileOrDir.moveTo(existingDir.child(fileOrDir.basename()))
moveToExistingDir(FilePath("c:/a"), FilePath("c:/b"))
