Why is the file name being changed?

Question

I created an automated script in Python to change my wallpaper on my desktop using the unsplash.com API. It runs fine, except when I tell it to save the file as wallpaper.jpg it does that once, then every file saved thereafter is saved as wallpaper(1).jpg. Why is this happening? I want the file to be saved simply as wallpaper.jpg.

I worked around the problem in the change_wallpaper function so that it retrieves the wallpaper(1).jpg file, but I would rather not have to do this if possible.

# import dependencies
import os
import requests
import wget
import ctypes
import time

from config import UNSPLASH_ACCESS_KEY


def get_wallpaper():
    # create API query and define parameters
    url = 'https://api.unsplash.com/photos/random?client_id=' + UNSPLASH_ACCESS_KEY
    params = {
        "query": "HD Wallpapers",
        "orientation": "landscape"
    }
    # create request, define json format, grab image url, and save to folder
    response = requests.get(url, params=params).json()
    image_url = response['urls']['full']
    # download the image
    image = wget.download(image_url, 'tmp/wallpaper.jpg')
    return image


def change_wallpaper():
    get_wallpaper()
    # create path using cwd, current working directory, and use ctypes to update the designated image as the wallpaper.
    path = os.getcwd()+'\\tmp\\wallpaper (1).jpg'
    ctypes.windll.user32.SystemParametersInfoW(20,0, path,3)

def main():

    try:
        while True:
            change_wallpaper()
            time.sleep(10)

    except KeyboardInterrupt:
        print("\nThank you, come again!")
    except Exception as e:
        pass

    
if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Answer 1

If the wget module doesn't have the capability to overwrite existing files you will need to delete the existing file before you try to download a new one. You can do this within your code as follows.

import os

if os.path.exists(filename):
    os.remove(filename)