Question

I am trying to learn python and am making a program that will output a script. I want to use os.path.join, but am pretty confused. According to the docs if I say:

os.path.join('c:', 'sourcedir')

I get "C:sourcedir". According to the docs, this is normal, right?

But when I use the copytree command, Python will output it the desired way, for example:

import shutil
src = os.path.join('c:', 'src')
dst = os.path.join('c:', 'dst')
shutil.copytree(src, dst)

Here is the error code I get:

WindowsError: [Error 3] The system cannot find the path specified: 'C:src/*.*'

If I wrap the os.path.join with os.path.normpath I get the same error.

If this os.path.join can’t be used this way, then I am confused as to its purpose.

According to the pages suggested by Stack Overflow, slashes should not be used in join—that is correct, I assume?

Answer 1

Windows has a concept of current directory for each drive. Because of that, "c:sourcedir" means “sourcedir” inside the current C: directory, and you’ll need to specify an absolute directory.

Any of these should work and give the same result, but I don’t have a Windows VM fired up at the moment to double check:

"c:/sourcedir"
os.path.join("/", "c:", "sourcedir")
os.path.join("c:/", "sourcedir")