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?

Answers:

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Method 1

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

Method 2

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.

Method 3

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.

Method 4

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)

Method 5

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.

Method 6

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("%sn" % 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('..')

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0