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pythonlinuxbashshellcp

run cp command to make a copy of a file or change a file name in Python

I want to use Python to run the cp command on Linux, thus copying a file. I have this code:

newfile = "namePart1" + dictionary[key] + "namePart2"

os.system("cp cfn5e10_1.lp newfile")

How can I make it so that the text newfile on the second line is replaced with the newfile variable that I calculated on the previous line?

Solution

  • Use shutil.copyfile to copy a file instead of os.sytem, it doesn't need to create a new process and it will automatically handle filenames with unusual characters in them, e.g. spaces -- os.system just passes the command to the shell, and the shell might break up filenames that have spaces in them, among other possible issues.

    For example:

    newfile = "namePart1" + dictionary[key] + "namePart2"
shutil.copyfile("cfn5e10_1.lp", newfile)