Question

I have been working on a project that takes a MySQL dump and restores a database with the information that a user provides. I keep getting a file can not be found error then my custom error for debugging stating that. OS command has failed.

try:
    username = self.username.get()
    password = self.password.get()
    database = self.database.get()
    file = self.filename
    print str(username)
    print str(file)
    test = os.system("mysql -u" + username + " -p" + password + " " + database + " <" + file)
    if (test != 0):
        print "OS COMMAND FAILED"
    else:
        print "pass"
    print test

except:
    print "fail"
    print "Unexpected error:", sys.exc_info()[0]
    raise

I will also continue to do research just in case I find the solution. I have been looking at the os.system command but the problem goes away if I specify the file name right in the command instead of retrieving it from a variable.

All the variables are pulled from entry boxes. There is no way for a user to type the file name incorectly as the program populates the filename based on a openfiledialog box and does not allow for the user to edit that box.

Error text:

C:/Documents and Settings/XPMUser/Desktop/src/database.sql

root

The system cannot find the file specified.

OS COMMAND FAILED

1

Answer 1

If there is a space in the filename, that will cause the kind of problem you describe. The shell will parse the space as being a delimiter. You may want to do something like

import pipes
...
database + " < " + pipes.quote(filename)

Better yet, use the subprocess module

test = subprocess.call(['mysql', '-u', username, '-p', password, database],
    stdin=open(file))