🔒 Can't rename a folder that can be listdir'd because "cannot find file specified" | Python | Page 1

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 1:37 AM

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Running Windows 10, trying to rename a bunch of folders to remove ellipsis from them, and I'm trying to os.rename( path + oldname, path + newname ) but I get [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified despite the fact that os.listdir( path + oldname ) works perfectly fine, and the oldname directory shows up in os.listdir( path )

hollow frigateBOT Dec 31, 2024, 1:37 AM

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rich egret Running Windows 10, trying to rename a bunch of folders to remove ellipsis from ...

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@rich egret

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undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 1:46 AM

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!pathlib

hollow frigateBOT Dec 31, 2024, 1:46 AM

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The `pathlib` module

Python 3 comes with a new module named Pathlib. Since Python 3.6, pathlib.Path objects work nearly everywhere that os.path can be used, meaning you can integrate your new code directly into legacy code without having to rewrite anything. Pathlib makes working with paths way simpler than os.path does.

Feature spotlight:

Normalizes file paths for all platforms automatically
Has glob-like utilites (eg. Path.glob, Path.rglob) for searching files
Can read and write files, and close them automatically
Convenient syntax, utilising the / operator (e.g. Path('~') / 'Documents')
Can easily pick out components of a path (eg. name, parent, stem, suffix, anchor)
Supports method chaining
Move and delete files
And much more

More Info:

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 1:47 AM

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rich egret Running Windows 10, trying to rename a bunch of folders to remove ellipsis from ...

i would encourage you to use Path from pathlib instead to have more reliable and cross platform functionality

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 1:47 AM

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I'll give it a shot

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this is mostly for a single script since I have like 30% of some 40,000 directories with "..." at the end and I'm just trying to get rid of those

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and not really for a project of any sort

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 1:49 AM

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aha, okay, but probably good to learn the more modern way of doing it for future scripts anyways 😉

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 1:49 AM

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true true

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 1:50 AM

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this is the method your looking for: https://docs.python.org/3/library/pathlib.html#pathlib.Path.rename

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mostly you can ignore the different windows and unix specific classes from pathlib and just juse Path all the time

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 1:52 AM

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so if I'm understanding this correctly

from pathlib import Path
source_dir = Path( path + oldname )
target_dir = Path( path + newname )
source_dir.rename( target_dir )

right?

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 1:52 AM

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you just use / between strings, string variables or Path objects to concatenate it together and the library will sort out what actually goes in between different components in the path

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 1:56 AM

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hmm still running into the same error, can't find file specified

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 1:57 AM

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rich egret so if I'm understanding this correctly ```py from pathlib import Path source_dir...

don't do the concatenation there

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also, where do you get the path and oldname and newname variables from?

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 1:58 AM

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just elsewhere in a for loop, didn't think it was necessary to post the full code

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but I can if you want

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 1:59 AM

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just so that it's easier to help out

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because it might be a better way to go about the whole thing

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:02 AM

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so haven't yet added the pathlib part, but this is what I'm doing ```py
import os

search_for = '...'

for oldname in os.listdir( path ):
if os.path.isfile( path + oldname ):
continue
if search_for not in oldname:
continue

newname = oldname.replace( search_for, '' )
try:
    os.rename( path + oldname, path + newname )
except WindowsError as err:
    print(err)
    break

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:04 AM

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and you only want to look at that dir level, not subdirectories, or would you want to include them as well?

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:04 AM

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correct

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I'm just looking at this directory level

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not subdirectories

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in path I'm expecting only files and directories with only files, so there shouldn't be any sub directories

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so is this what I should be doing?

import os
from pathlib in Path

search_for = '...'

for oldname in os.listdir( path ):
    if os.path.isfile( path + oldname ):
        continue
    if search_for not in oldname:
        continue
    oldpath = Path( path + oldname )
    newname = oldname.replace( search_for, '' )
    newpath = Path( oldname.replace( search_for, '' )
    try:
        oldpath.replace( new_path )
    except WindowsError as err:
        print(err)
        break

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:12 AM

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okay, test this out

from pathlib import Path

for dir in Path().cwd().glob("*.../"):
    dir.rename(str(dir).removesuffix("..."))

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that is for doing the search in the current directory, hence cwd() in there

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:12 AM

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ah gotcha

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tbh I usually don't actually run python in the working directory hence why I usually just use a path variable

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:13 AM

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you can put a path in there instead

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:13 AM

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fair enough

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but it is good to know about cwd()

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:13 AM

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from pathlib import Path

for dir in Path("/my/path/here").glob("*.../"):
    dir.rename(str(dir).removesuffix("..."))

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or just:

from pathlib import Path

for dir in Path(path).glob("*.../"):
    dir.rename(str(dir).removesuffix("..."))

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:14 AM

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huh so glob is like grabbing something almost regex style?

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:14 AM

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if you define path elsewhere

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yeah, but it got its own pattern matching

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:15 AM

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gotcha, neat

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:15 AM

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https://docs.python.org/3/library/pathlib.html#pathlib-pattern-language

Python documentation

pathlib — Object-oriented filesystem paths

Source code: Lib/pathlib/ This module offers classes representing filesystem paths with semantics appropriate for different operating systems. Path classes are divided between pure paths, which pro...

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this is the one that it uses, it's linked from the documentation about glob in the pathlib docs: https://docs.python.org/3/library/pathlib.html#pathlib.Path.glob

Python documentation

pathlib — Object-oriented filesystem paths

Source code: Lib/pathlib/ This module offers classes representing filesystem paths with semantics appropriate for different operating systems. Path classes are divided between pure paths, which pro...

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i put a / at the end of the glob pattern to tell it to only look for directories

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:17 AM

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AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'removesuffix'

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:17 AM

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undone forge i put a `/` at the end of the glob pattern to tell it to only look for directori...

yep I noticed, and that makes sense to me

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:17 AM

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if i wanted it to go for the directory and all subdirectories i would have used **/*.../ as the glob pattern instead

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:18 AM

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rich egret `AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'removesuffix'`

that's strange, which version of python are you running?

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:18 AM

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3.8

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:20 AM

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https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#str.removesuffix

Added in version 3.9.

Python documentation

Built-in Types

The following sections describe the standard types that are built into the interpreter. The principal built-in types are numerics, sequences, mappings, classes, instances and exceptions. Some colle...

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😞

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:20 AM

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oof

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:21 AM

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well then, we can do it without it, it's just a convenience function anyways

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:21 AM

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yeah, 3.8.3 apparently

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makes sense

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how's this? str(dir).rstrip("...")

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:23 AM

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i think that is equal to str(dir).rstrip(".") and will remove any number of . at the end of the string

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:24 AM

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hm fair

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either way still get the same error

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:24 AM

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but might be okay in this case

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:24 AM

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FileNotFoundError: [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:25 AM

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is it a directory or is it a symlink

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:25 AM

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directory

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part of the reason I'm trying to remove the ellipsis is because I've been noticing weird behavior in all of the directories in path that have ellipsis

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so I figured trying to remove the ellipsis may make the directories behave like normal, but I'm not sure

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I was trying to move them to my NAS over SMB and something about that file transfer has left these directories in a weird state

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Windows can't find any files in the directories but I can os.listdir them in Python and get their contents perfectly fine

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Windows also can't open the directories in File Explorer

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:32 AM

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that sounds really strange

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:32 AM

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lol yeah

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:32 AM

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so the directories that you are trying to rename resides on a NAS that you are accessing over SMB with python?

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:32 AM

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they're local, I'm trying to move them to a NAS

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:33 AM

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oh, okay, that makes sense

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:33 AM

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now that I check tho, there are some that are duplicated on the NAS already

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same directory name but without the ellipsis

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:34 AM

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i do think windows can take issue with files and directories ending in ..., i think i have seen that before

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:35 AM

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tbh I don't think they were supposed to be ending with ..., I think for some reason something about this file transfer made them end with it

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:36 AM

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have you transferred them from the NAS to your local drive over SMB and then they ended up with those file names?

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:36 AM

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nah other way, I'm trying to go from local to NAS

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oh right I forgot to mention

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I had a file transfer going then File Explorer crashed in the middle of it

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that's probably what's causing this weirdness

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but still need to find some way to fix it

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I think the ones that end with ... are the files that were marked for deletion after a successful file transfer

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:38 AM

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but the directories with the three dots at the end is on your local drive, right?

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:38 AM

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yep

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:39 AM

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i don't remember when, but it was quite a long time ago, i too had a problem with a few directories with three dots at the end on i windows system

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:40 AM

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so in order of events: local files don't have ..., I try to transfer them to NAS, in the middle of the transfer File Explorer crashes, I check local files again, now there's a bunch of directories with ... at the end which I can't open in windows

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:41 AM

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luckily for me i had cygwin installed on the system so that i could just open a bash prompt and fix it manually (because there wasn't a lot of them in my case)

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msys2 would probably work just as well as cygwin, i think i even had both installed on that system

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:43 AM

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looking up some more info about it, apparently Win32 doesn't let you end directories with . and all that would end a directory name just get removed under normal circumstances

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apparently you can still remove them in CLI with rmdir tho

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:47 AM

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yeah, you are right, i just accessed a remote windows 10 system and tried it out on just now

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the number also correspond to how many dots there are at the end of each directory name

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:48 AM

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even CLI can't delete them >_>

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The system cannot find the file specified.

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:49 AM

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can't access any of them besides the directory named testing

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:50 AM

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oh found out how to delete them

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:50 AM

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yeah, your right, CMD can't access or delete it either

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:50 AM

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because it contains a . the CMD thinks it's a file, so you have to append a \ so it knows it's a directory

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:51 AM

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but are you okay just deleting the directories?

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 2:52 AM

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most of them are already backed up and it's not critical data so I'm not going to fret about losing whatever like 5 might have been in progress during the transfer crash

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huh it seems to work in python as well

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just adding \ to the end

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might just try making a new directory with what it was supposed to be named, move the contained files to the new directory, then delete the old problematic directories

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 2:58 AM

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wow, using 7-Zip i can brows the directory just fine 😄

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and also rename it

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@rich egret still there?

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 3:09 AM

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yep just finished running the script

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the original scripts worked once I appended "\\" to the end of the directory names so it stopped looking for a file named "blah blah..." and instead found the directories named "blah blah..."

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just had to add a little bit so it handles some of the duplicates but it works now

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I appreciate your help, glad I could finally un mess up these files x_x

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 3:11 AM

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but if you wanted to explore those directories you could at least do that with 7-Zip

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 3:11 AM

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true

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 3:12 AM

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rich egret I appreciate your help, glad I could finally un mess up these files x_x

good that you have solved the problem now

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and it was also easy to rename the directories using 7-Zip manually if it wasn't a lot of them, so that they become usable from windows explorer again

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 3:13 AM

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yeah, unfortunately that would not have been feasible for my issue, since it was a few thousand problem directories

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 3:13 AM

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rich egret yeah, unfortunately that would not have been feasible for my issue, since it was...

damn, that was a lot

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good that you could script your way around it then 👍

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 3:14 AM

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lol yeah that's the reason I was trying python to fix it xD

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 3:15 AM

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just noticed something else in my test directory
the directory named test1. with only one dot at the end messes everything up for python on windows

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but if i rename it test1.. (just add another dot to it) it's all fine and is accessible with python on windows again

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so watch out for the directories with a single dot at the end of the name, they seem to be the most problematic

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not even adding "\\" to the end of the directory name helps python to be able to operate on the directory with just a single dot at the end of the name
so i don't know how i would fix that without doing it manually with 7-Zip or scripting it with bash in bash script with cygwin installed

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this is the code i ran as the .rename() method of Path from pathlib couldn't rename any of the directories ending with any amounts of dots at the end, but os.rename could, at least if there was two or more dots at the end, but not directories with a single dot at the end

import os
from pathlib import Path

for dir in Path().cwd().glob("*./"):
    os.rename(str(dir) + "\\", str(dir).rstrip("."))

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don't know why 🤷

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 3:33 AM

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agreed, -shrug-

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that being said, after running the script, I have no directories with '.' in them

undone forge Dec 31, 2024, 3:42 AM

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good, so problem solved then?

rich egret Dec 31, 2024, 3:56 AM

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yep

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actually had to run the script another time because file explorer crashed again, but I'm now using a different program for transferring the files over to the NAS that can better handle errors

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!close

hollow frigateBOT Dec 31, 2024, 3:57 AM

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Python help channel closed

This help channel has been closed and it's no longer possible to send messages here. If your question wasn't answered, feel free to create a new post in #1035199133436354600. To maximize your chances of getting a response, check out this guide on asking good questions.

#🔒 Can't rename a folder that can be listdir'd because "cannot find file specified"