New submission from Kim Gräsman: os.unlink currently raises a WindowsError (Access Denied) if I attempt to unlink an NTFS junction point.
It looks trivial to allow Py_DeleteFileW [1] to remove junction points as well as proper symbolic links, as far as I can tell. For example, the ntfslink-python library [2] only checks if both FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY and FILE_ATTRIBUTE_REPARSE_POINT are set. RemoveDirectoryW is documented to handle junction points transparently, so it should just be a matter of passing the path on if it's a junction point or a symbolic link. My motivation for this is that I have used external tools to create junction points, and am now switching to symbolic links. When deleting a directory, I need to do: try: os.unlink(link_path) except WindowsError as detail: # BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY HACK if detail.winerror == 5: _delete_junction_point(link_path) else: raise which is a little funky. It seems like os.unlink semantics work just as well for junction points, even if they can't be created with os.symlink. Love it/hate it? [1] http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/44f455e6163d/Modules/posixmodule.c#l4105 [2] https://github.com/Juntalis/ntfslink-python/blob/2f6ff903f9b22942de8aa93a32a3d817124f359e/ntfslink/internals/__init__.py#L32 ---------- components: Windows messages: 191945 nosy: Kim.Gräsman priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: Have os.unlink remove junction points type: behavior versions: Python 3.3 _______________________________________ Python tracker <rep...@bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue18314> _______________________________________ _______________________________________________ Python-bugs-list mailing list Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-bugs-list/archive%40mail-archive.com