Copy file or directories recursively in Python

Python seems to have functions for copying files (e.g. shutil.copy) and functions for copying directories (e.g. shutil.copytree) but I haven't found any function that handles both. Sure, it's trivial to check whether you want to copy a file or a directory, but it seems like a strange omission.

Is there really no standard function that works like the unix cp -r command, i.e. supports both directories and files and copies recursively? What would be the most elegant way to work around this problem in Python?

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6 Answers

I suggest you first call shutil.copytree, and if an exception is thrown, then retry with shutil.copy.

import shutil, errno
def copyanything(src, dst): try: shutil.copytree(src, dst) except OSError as exc: # python >2.5 if exc.errno in (errno.ENOTDIR, errno.EINVAL): shutil.copy(src, dst) else: raise

10

To add on Tzot's and gns answers, here's an alternative way of copying files and folders recursively. (Python 3.X)

import os, shutil
root_src_dir = r'C:\MyMusic' #Path/Location of the source directory
root_dst_dir = 'D:MusicBackUp' #Path to the destination folder
for src_dir, dirs, files in os.walk(root_src_dir): dst_dir = src_dir.replace(root_src_dir, root_dst_dir, 1) if not os.path.exists(dst_dir): os.makedirs(dst_dir) for file_ in files: src_file = os.path.join(src_dir, file_) dst_file = os.path.join(dst_dir, file_) if os.path.exists(dst_file): os.remove(dst_file) shutil.copy(src_file, dst_dir)

Should it be your first time and you have no idea how to copy files and folders recursively, I hope this helps.

shutil.copy and shutil.copy2 are copying files.

shutil.copytree copies a folder with all the files and all subfolders. shutil.copytree is using shutil.copy2 to copy the files.

So the analog to cp -r you are saying is the shutil.copytree because cp -r targets and copies a folder and its files/subfolders like shutil.copytree. Without the -r cp copies files like shutil.copy and shutil.copy2 do.

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The fastest and most elegant way I've found until now is to use the copy_tree function of distutils.dir_util native package:

import distutils.dir_util
from_dir = "foo/bar"
to_dir = "truc/machin"
distutils.dir_util.copy_tree(from_dir, to_dir)

Unix cp doesn't 'support both directories and files':

betelgeuse:tmp james$ cp source/ dest/
cp: source/ is a directory (not copied).

To make cp copy a directory, you have to manually tell cp that it's a directory, by using the '-r' flag.

There is some disconnect here though - cp -r when passed a filename as the source will happily copy just the single file; copytree won't.

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The python shutil.copytree method its a mess. I've done one that works correctly:

def copydirectorykut(src, dst): os.chdir(dst) list=os.listdir(src) nom= src+'.txt' fitx= open(nom, 'w') for item in list: fitx.write("%s\n" % item) fitx.close() f = open(nom,'r') for line in f.readlines(): if "." in line: shutil.copy(src+'/'+line[:-1],dst+'/'+line[:-1]) else: if not os.path.exists(dst+'/'+line[:-1]): os.makedirs(dst+'/'+line[:-1]) copydirectorykut(src+'/'+line[:-1],dst+'/'+line[:-1]) copydirectorykut(src+'/'+line[:-1],dst+'/'+line[:-1]) f.close() os.remove(nom) os.chdir('..')

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