The shutil module offers a number of high-level operations on
files and collections of files. In particular, functions are provided
which support file copying and removal.
Caveat: On MacOS, the resource fork and other metadata are
not used. For file copies, this means that resources will be lost and
file type and creator codes will not be correct.
copyfile(
src, dst)
Copy the contents of the file named src to a file named
dst. The destination location must be writable; otherwise,
an IOError exception will be raised.
If dst already exists, it will be replaced.
Special files such as character or block devices
and pipes cannot be copied with this function. src and
dst are path names given as strings.
copyfileobj(
fsrc, fdst[, length])
Copy the contents of the file-like object fsrc to the
file-like object fdst. The integer length, if given,
is the buffer size. In particular, a negative length value
means to copy the data without looping over the source data in
chunks; by default the data is read in chunks to avoid uncontrolled
memory consumption.
copymode(
src, dst)
Copy the permission bits from src to dst. The file
contents, owner, and group are unaffected. src and dst
are path names given as strings.
copystat(
src, dst)
Copy the permission bits, last access time, and last modification
time from src to dst. The file contents, owner, and
group are unaffected. src and dst are path names given
as strings.
copy(
src, dst)
Copy the file src to the file or directory dst. If
dst is a directory, a file with the same basename as src
is created (or overwritten) in the directory specified. Permission
bits are copied. src and dst are path names given as
strings.
copy2(
src, dst)
Similar to copy(), but last access time and last
modification time are copied as well. This is similar to the
Unix command cp-p.
copytree(
src, dst[, symlinks])
Recursively copy an entire directory tree rooted at src. The
destination directory, named by dst, must not already exist;
it will be created as well as missing parent directories.
Permissions and times of directories are copied with copystat(),
individual files are copied using copy2().
If symlinks is true, symbolic links in
the source tree are represented as symbolic links in the new tree;
if false or omitted, the contents of the linked files are copied to
the new tree. If exception(s) occur, an Error is raised
with a list of reasons.
The source code for this should be considered an example rather than
a tool.
Changed in version 2.3:
Error is raised if any exceptions occur during
copying, rather than printing a message.
Changed in version 2.5:
Create intermediate directories needed to create dst,
rather than raising an error. Copy permissions and times of
directories using copystat().
rmtree(
path[, ignore_errors[, onerror]])
Delete an entire directory tree.
If ignore_errors is true,
errors resulting from failed removals will be ignored; if false or
omitted, such errors are handled by calling a handler specified by
onerror or, if that is omitted, they raise an exception.
If onerror is provided, it must be a callable that accepts
three parameters: function, path, and excinfo.
The first parameter, function, is the function which raised
the exception; it will be os.listdir(), os.remove() or
os.rmdir(). The second parameter, path, will be
the path name passed to function. The third parameter,
excinfo, will be the exception information return by
sys.exc_info(). Exceptions raised by onerror will
not be caught.
move(
src, dst)
Recursively move a file or directory to another location.
If the destination is on our current filesystem, then simply use
rename. Otherwise, copy src to the dst and then remove src.
New in version 2.3.
exceptionError
This exception collects exceptions that raised during a mult-file
operation. For copytree, the exception argument is a
list of 3-tuples (srcname, dstname, exception).
