In Python, when running shutil.rmtree
over a folder that contains a read-only file, the following exception is printed:
File "C:\Python26\lib\shutil.py", line 216, in rmtree
rmtree(fullname, ignore_errors, onerror)
File "C:\Python26\lib\shutil.py", line 216, in rmtree
rmtree(fullname, ignore_errors, onerror)
File "C:\Python26\lib\shutil.py", line 216, in rmtree
rmtree(fullname, ignore_errors, onerror)
File "C:\Python26\lib\shutil.py", line 216, in rmtree
rmtree(fullname, ignore_errors, onerror)
File "C:\Python26\lib\shutil.py", line 216, in rmtree
rmtree(fullname, ignore_errors, onerror)
File "C:\Python26\lib\shutil.py", line 216, in rmtree
rmtree(fullname, ignore_errors, onerror)
File "C:\Python26\lib\shutil.py", line 216, in rmtree
rmtree(fullname, ignore_errors, onerror)
File "C:\Python26\lib\shutil.py", line 221, in rmtree
onerror(os.remove, fullname, sys.exc_info())
File "C:\Python26\lib\shutil.py", line 219, in rmtree
os.remove(fullname)
WindowsError: [Error 5] Access is denied: 'build\\tcl\\tcl8.5\\msgs\\af.msg'
Looking in File Properties dialog I noticed that af.msg
file is set to be read-only.
So the question is: what is the simplest workaround/fix to get around this problem - given that my intention is to do an equivalent of rm -rf build/
but on Windows? (without having to use third-party tools like unxutils or cygwin - as this code is targeted to be run on a bare Windows install with Python 2.6 w/ PyWin32 installed)
Check this question out:
What user do python scripts run as in windows?
Apparently the answer is to change the file/folder to not be read-only and then remove it.
Here's onerror()
handler from pathutils.py
mentioned by @Sridhar Ratnakumar in comments:
def onerror(func, path, exc_info):
"""
Error handler for ``shutil.rmtree``.
If the error is due to an access error (read only file)
it attempts to add write permission and then retries.
If the error is for another reason it re-raises the error.
Usage : ``shutil.rmtree(path, onerror=onerror)``
"""
import stat
if not os.access(path, os.W_OK):
# Is the error an access error ?
os.chmod(path, stat.S_IWUSR)
func(path)
else:
raise
I'd say implement your own rmtree with os.walk that ensures access by using os.chmod on each file before trying to delete it.
Something like this (untested):
import os
import stat
def rmtree(top):
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(top, topdown=False):
for name in files:
filename = os.path.join(root, name)
os.chmod(filename, stat.S_IWUSR)
os.remove(filename)
for name in dirs:
os.rmdir(os.path.join(root, name))
os.rmdir(top)
Well, the marked solution did not work for me... did this instead:
os.system('rmdir /S /Q "{}"'.format(directory))
shutil.rmtree(path,ignore_errors=False,onerror=errorRemoveReadonly)
def errorRemoveReadonly(func, path, exc):
excvalue = exc[1]
if func in (os.rmdir, os.remove) and excvalue.errno == errno.EACCES:
# change the file to be readable,writable,executable: 0777
os.chmod(path, stat.S_IRWXU | stat.S_IRWXG | stat.S_IRWXO)
# retry
func(path)
else:
raiseenter code here
If ignore_errors is set, errors are ignored; otherwise, if onerror
is set, it is called to handle the error with arguments (func,
path, exc_info) where func is os.listdir, os.remove, or os.rmdir;
path is the argument to that function that caused it to fail; and
exc_info is a tuple returned by sys.exc_info(). If ignore_errors
is false and onerror is None, an exception is raised.enter code here
A simple workaround is using subprocess.call
from subprocess import call
call("rm -rf build/", shell=True)
In order to execute everything you want.