CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python
xavier
xavier

Reputation: 816

TypeError when passing a 'file' variable to a fuction

When I first coded this in to a single function, it worked. But I want to do more things when I am checking for files in to the directory, so I have divided the code in two functions : One checks for files on a directory that end with *.rar extension, if it finds a file that matches, it uncompresses it to a directory.

import shutil, os, patoolib, fnmatch, glob


def unrar():

        patoolib.extract_archive(file, outdir="/root/tree/def")



def chktree():

        for file in glob.glob('/root/tree/down/*'):
                if fnmatch.fnmatch(file, '*.rar'):
                        unrar()

chktree()

Executing unrar() after the if from the function chktree(): does not work. I would like to know what I am doing wrong, this is the output :

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "autotube.py", line 16, in <module>
    chktree()
  File "autotube.py", line 14, in chktree
    unrar()
  File "autotube.py", line 6, in unrar
    patoolib.extract_archive(file, outdir="/root/tree/def")
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/patoolib/__init__.py", line 676, in extract_archive
    util.check_existing_filename(archive)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/patoolib/util.py", line 389, in check_existing_filename
    if not os.path.exists(filename):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/genericpath.py", line 26, in exists
    os.stat(path)
TypeError: coercing to Unicode: need string or buffer, type found

Upvotes: 1

Views: 154

Answers (2)

merlin2011
merlin2011

Reputation: 75565

You need to pass the variable file explicitly to the function you are calling. Also, file is a special name in Python, so you should probably use a different name, such as my_file or simply f.

import shutil, os, patoolib, fnmatch, glob

def unrar(my_file):
        patoolib.extract_archive(my_file, outdir="/root/tree/def")

def chktree():
        for f in glob.glob('/root/tree/down/*'):
                if fnmatch.fnmatch(f, '*.rar'):
                        unrar(f)
chktree()

Additionally, as @mgilson noted, the reason for the actual error you are seeing is that Python thinks you are referring to the built-in name file since you did not pass a parameter which shadowed it. Had you used a different name, you would have gotten a NameError instead.

Upvotes: 3

timgeb
timgeb

Reputation: 78690

In python 2, there is a file builtin, which is what you are calling extract_archive with in your unrar function. You are not using your loop variable from chktree because it only lives within chktree. You can write it like this:

def unrar(f):
    patoolib.extract_archive(f, outdir="/root/tree/def")

def chktree():    
    for f in glob.glob('/root/tree/down/*'):
        if fnmatch.fnmatch(f, '*.rar'):
            unrar(f)

I used f as the name for the file to prevent masking the builtin.

Upvotes: 3

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