CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonfile-io
user1067305
user1067305

Reputation: 3501

"file being used by another process" error message

Yes, there are many other questions here on this topic. I have looked at the responses but I have not seen any which gives a useful solution.

I have the problem in its simplest form:

import os, time
hfile = "Positions.htm"
hf = open(hfile, "w")
hf.write(str(buf))
hf.close
time.sleep(2) # give it time to catch up
os.system(hfile) # run the html file in the default browser

I get this error message: "The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process". The file is referenced nowhere else in the program.

No other process is using it, since I can access it without error from any other program, even if I run os.system(file) from the python console.

There's no point in using unlocker, because as soon as I leave the program, I can open the html file in the browser with no complaints from the system.

It looks like 'close' is not properly releasing the file.

I run programs this way out of perl all the time, with no problem except requiring the 1 or 2 second delay.

I'm using Python 3.4 on Win7.

Any suggestions?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 426

Answers (1)

kylieCatt
kylieCatt

Reputation: 11049

You're not calling close(). Needs to be:

import os, time
hfile = "Positions.htm"
hf = open(hfile, "w")
hf.write(str(buf))
hf.close()  # note the parens
time.sleep(2) # give it time to catch up
os.system(hfile) # run the html file in the default browser

However to avoid problems like this you should use a context manager:

import os, time
hfile = "Positions.htm"
with open(hfile, 'w') as hf:
    hf.write(str(buf))
os.system(hfile) # run the html file in the default browser

The context manager will handle the closing of the file automatically.

Upvotes: 1

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