Question

I am trying to open a text file in python. In the following code:

import datime
from datetime import datetime

today = datetime.now()
sitename = "Soil Report"
rptFolder = r"C:\Template_Outputs\Production Reports"

file = open(rptFolder + "\\" + sitename + "_" + today.strftime("%y%b%d_%H:%M:%S") + ".txt", "w")

I keep getting the following error:

[Errno 22] invalid mode (‘w’) or filename:

I’ve narrowed it down the setting the date in the file name. It doesn’t seem to like that (i.e. I just replaced the today.strftime(“%y%b%d_%H:%M:%S”) with “test” and it worked)

I’ve also tried to set the date as string to get it into the file name like:

str(today.strftime("%y%b%d_%H:%M:%S"))

No luck there either.

I need the time stamp in the file name because it the bigger script may be fun a few times in a short period.

is there something I’m missing here?

Answer 1

If you’re doing Windows, Windows doesn’t allow files with colons (:). Try removing your colon from here:

str(today.strftime("%y%b%d_%H:%M:%S"))

and see what happens