Copy files in python

Airsource Ltd Airsource Ltd Noam Manos Noam Manos Firstly, I made an exhaustive cheatsheet of shutil methods for your reference. SameFileError', 'exception shutil. Error'], 'others':['shutil. For small files and using only python built-ins, you can use the following one-liner: with open source, 'rb' as src, open dest, 'wb' as dst: dst.

You could use os. This is a Linux only solution. James Donnelly k 33 33 gold badges silver badges bronze badges. Even when shutil is not available - subprocess. For flexibility and security however, use the ['cp', rawfile, 'rawdata. However, for copying, shutil and friends are recommended over calling an external program. Marc Marc 3, 28 28 silver badges 31 31 bronze badges. And then someone uses the code accidentally or purposefully on a large file… Using functions from shutil handles all the special cases for you and gives you peace of mind.

Yes, but I thought that maybe this could be easier to understand because it copies entire lines rather than parts of them in case we don't know how many bytes each line is. Very true. Coding for teaching and coding for efficiency are very different. Also, the file stream is already open, so write wouldn't need to reopen it every time.

This is awful. It does unnecessary work for no good reason. It doesn't work for arbitrary files. The copy isn't byte-identical if the input has unusual line endings on systems like Windows. Why do you think that this might be easier to understand than a call to a copy function in shutil?

Show 2 more comments. Sundeep Sundeep 1, 18 18 silver badges 24 24 bronze badges. All answers need explanation, even if it is one sentence. No explanation sets bad precedent and is not helpful in understanding the program. What if a complete Python noob came along and saw this, wanted to use it, but couldn't because they don't understand it? You want to be helpful to all in your answers. Isn't that missing the. No need of. Same suboptimal memory-wasting approach as yellow01's answer.

Show 1 more comment. Use subprocess. CaptAngryEyes 1 1 gold badge 1 1 silver badge 12 12 bronze badges. This depends on the platform, so i would not use is. Such a call is unsecure. Please refere to the subproces docu about it. Hmm why Python, then? Maybe detect the operating system before starting whether it's DOS or Unix, because those are the two most used — MilkyWay Refer to the table below for your use case. Raymond Toh Raymond Toh 1 1 gold badge 5 5 silver badges 25 25 bronze badges.

In case you've come this far down. The answer is that you need the entire path and file name import os shutil. Leonardo Wildt Leonardo Wildt 2, 4 4 gold badges 24 24 silver badges 50 50 bronze badges. And if the file name remains, you can copy to the destination folder: shutil.

Basj Basj Related Articles. Table of Contents. Improve Article. Save Article. Like Article. Last Updated : 02 Dec, Source Path of File. Destination Folder. Data in source file. Destination File.

Want to watch a video instead? Check out my YouTube tutorial here. In this post, you learned four different ways to copy a file in Python using the shutil library. Knowing the advantages and implications of the different approaches can make you get the results you really wanted.

To learn more about the shutil library, check out the official documentation here. Tags: Python Python OS. Share via. Copy Link. Powered by Social Snap.

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