On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 8:16 PM, Tim <jtim.arn...@gmail.com> wrote: > My intent is to pass it a directory name or path and if it exists, use > shutil.rmtree to remove whatever is there (if it isn't a directory, try to > unlink it); then use os.makedirs to create a new directory or path: > > def make_clean_dir(directory): > if os.path.exists(directory): > if os.path.isdir(directory): > shutil.rmtree(directory) > else: > os.unlink(directory) > os.makedirs(directory) > > The last bit of the traceback is: > File "/develop/myproject/helpers/__init__.py", line 35, in make_clean_dir > os.makedirs(directory) > File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/os.py", line 157, in makedirs > mkdir(name, mode) > OSError: [Errno 17] File exists: '/users/tim/testing/testing_html' > > The directory 'testing_html' existed when I executed the function;
First thing I'd check is: Did rmtree succeed? Try removing the makedirs and test it again; then, when your process has completely finished, see if the directory is there. If it is, the problem is in rmtree - for instance: * You might not have permission to remove everything * There might be a messed-up object in the file system * If the directory is a remote share mount point, the other end might have lied about the removal * Something might have been created inside the directory during the removal * Myriad other possibilities As I understand rmtree's docs, any errors *that it detects* will be raised as exceptions (since you haven't told it to suppress or handle them), but possibly there's an error that it isn't able to detect. Worth a test, anyhow. ChrisA -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
