CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpython-2.7shutil
vmenezes
vmenezes

Reputation: 1246

shutil samefile error on Linux

I have a python script that is giving me a hard time on Ubuntu 12.02 with Python 2.7.3.

PS: it runs without problems on Windows.

>>> import os
>>> import shutil

>>> shutil.copy("/mnt/my_network_dive/somewhere/sample.xml", "/mnt/my_network_drive/COMPLETED/")
Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
    File "/usr/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 117, in copy
        copyfile(src, dst)
    File "/usr/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 69, in copyfile
        raise Error("`%s` and `%s` are the same file" % (src, dst))
shutil.Error:    `/mnt/my_network_dive/somewhere/sample.xml` and `/mnt/my_network_drive/COMPLETED/sample.xml` are the same file

Checking some properties of the files:

>>> os.path.exists("/mnt/my_network_drive/somewhere/sample.xml")
True
>>> os.path.exists("/mnt/my_network_drive/COMPLETED/sample.xml")
True
>>> os.stat("/mnt/my_network_drive/somewhere/sample.xml")
posix.stat_result(st_mode=33272, st_ino=4913809333, st_dev=25L, st_nlink=1, st_uid=1000, st_gid=0, st_size=5447, st_atime=1465311674, st_mtime=1465311674, st_ctime=1465311685)
>>> os.stat("/mnt/my_network_drive/COMPLETED/sample.xml")
posix.stat_result(st_mode=33272, st_ino=4913809333, st_dev=25L, st_nlink=1, st_uid=1000, st_gid=0, st_size=10, st_atime=1465317482, st_mtime=1465317482, st_ctime=1465317483)
>>> os.path.islink("/mnt/my_network_drive/somewhere/sample.xml")
False
>>> os.path.islink("/mnt/my_network_drive/COMPLETED/sample.xml")
False

>>> shutil._samefile("/mnt/my_network_dive/somewhere/sample.xml", "/mnt/my_network_drive/COMPLETED/sample.xml")
False

As you see, calling shutil._samefile I get False but shutil.copy still raise the samefile error.

Am I forgetting something? Any other way to move or copy files with Python?

Upvotes: 4

Views: 4129

Answers (2)

Adam Przedniczek
Adam Przedniczek

Reputation: 202

In python 3 in shutil.copy there's additional argument follow_symlinks=True Look at this https://docs.python.org/3/library/shutil.html

If follow_symlinks is false, and src is a symbolic link, dst will be created as a symbolic link. If follow_symlinks is true and src is a symbolic link, dst will be a copy of the file src refers to.

Upvotes: 0

Brendan Abel
Brendan Abel

Reputation: 37539

It looks like the two files are both hard links to the same file. You can tell because they share the same inode number

st_ino=4913809333

Windows users generally don't create hard links. They are more common in linux environments, which is why you may have not encountered the problem until now.

It is odd that samefile returns False. What OS are you using? shutil._samefile is just a wrapper around os.path.samefile (on systems where that function exists). What results do you get from os.path.samefile? On posix systems, it just checks that the device and inode match (which they do in your case) and it should return True

posixpath.py

def samefile(f1, f2):
    s1 = os.stat(f1)
    s2 = os.stat(f2)
    return samestat(s1, s2)

def samestat(s1, s2):
    return s1.st_ino == s2.st_ino and s1.st_dev == s2.st_dev

Upvotes: 2

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