David Y.
—How do I copy files in Python?
We can do this in a few different ways using Python’s built-in shutil
library.
Using copyfile
:
import shutil shutil.copyfile("source-directory/file.txt", "destination-directory/file.txt")
Note that we must specify the entire path in the second argument, including the filename. If the destination is not writable by the current OS user, an OSError
exception will be raised. If the file already exists at the destination path, it will be overwritten.
We can also use copy
:
import shutil shutil.copy("source-directory/file.txt", "destination-directory")
As long as destination-directory
is an existing directory, copy
will figure that we want to place our file inside destination-directory
without changing its name. When copying a file this way, its permissions will be preserved, but other metadata, such as creation and modification times, will not. To preserve this metadata, we can use copy2
instead of copy
:
import shutil shutil.copy2("source-directory/file.txt", "destination-directory")
To copy all files and subdirectories in a given directory, we can use copytree
:
import shutil shutil.copytree("source-directory", "destination-directory")
Note that if destination-directory
already exists, a FileExistsError
exception will be raised. To prevent this, we can pass dirs_exist_ok=True
to the function as a keyword argument – this will cause copytree
to merge the source and destination directory trees and overwrite any files with matching names.
Tasty treats for web developers brought to you by Sentry. Get tips and tricks from Wes Bos and Scott Tolinski.
SEE EPISODESConsidered “not bad” by 4 million developers and more than 100,000 organizations worldwide, Sentry provides code-level observability to many of the world’s best-known companies like Disney, Peloton, Cloudflare, Eventbrite, Slack, Supercell, and Rockstar Games. Each month we process billions of exceptions from the most popular products on the internet.
Here’s a quick look at how Sentry handles your personal information (PII).
×We collect PII about people browsing our website, users of the Sentry service, prospective customers, and people who otherwise interact with us.
What if my PII is included in data sent to Sentry by a Sentry customer (e.g., someone using Sentry to monitor their app)? In this case you have to contact the Sentry customer (e.g., the maker of the app). We do not control the data that is sent to us through the Sentry service for the purposes of application monitoring.
Am I included?We may disclose your PII to the following type of recipients:
You may have the following rights related to your PII:
If you have any questions or concerns about your privacy at Sentry, please email us at compliance@sentry.io.
If you are a California resident, see our Supplemental notice.