On Tue, 14 Jul 2026 at 02:18, Left Right <[email protected]> wrote: > > > If it's raising an error, then yes, at the moment, the caller does not > > have the required permissions to delete the file. If you *do* have > > permission to delete the file, even if it's read only, then you won't > > get the error. I'm not sure what the conflict is here. > > [...] > > The error says, you don't have permission to do that. Which is a fact. > > Both users and administrators understand permissions as a reference to > ownership. Owning X gives you permissions to do with X as you please, > including deleting it.
And that's exactly how Linux treats it. I can remove a read-only file. (The rm command checks first and requires you to pass -f in order to do that, but the unlink() API call will let you remove a read-only file just fine, and thus so can Python's os.unlink().) However, if the *containing directory* is read-only, that's an indication that you have chosen to protect it from changes. Same as protecting a file. Yes, you own it and can lift that protection, but it's a deliberate action you have to take. I'm really not seeing this as a problem. > Linux system errors are plagued with bad decisions and pathologically > bad reporting. I would expect the same from MS Windows. There's no > reason to ever consider them as good examples for anything besides, > maybe, as a source for jokes. Wow. I guess you've made your own operating system that's perfect? > Bottom line: I think that having a FileReadOnly exception is a good > idea because it more precisely reports the problem and gives users a > direction for fixing it, whereas reporting permissions error doesn't. Okay. Go ahead and make that happen, or convince someone that it needs to be done. ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman3//lists/python-list.python.org
