Question

So here’s my problem. I have a python script that takes a zipfile and extracts its contents. Then based on some constraint, I will try to delete the folder whose contents were just extracted. For some reason I get an error, WindowsError: [Error 5] Access is denied: ‘Foldername’ when i try to delete that folder. The simple code looks like the following

wzip = zipfile.ZipFile(‘zipfile.zip’)

wzip.extractall()

wzip.close()

os.remove(‘ExtractedFolder’)

If I run this in the interpreter I get the following:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File “”, line 1, in
WindowsError: [Error 5] Access is denied: ‘ExtractedFolder’

I’m using Python 2.6 on Windows Vista 32-bit and I’m kinda baffled as to why this might be happening.

Answer 1

Many reasons possible.

1. You need to use os.rmdir to remove directories
2. You need to empty the folder
   first – remember, the Windows command
   rmdir needs a /S option to
   remove the contents, and Python probably uses that.
3. Is the unzip
   also using the archive’s attributes?
   Read-only attributes may be applied.
4. Are you reading anything from that
   folder, before you delete? You may
   not have closed it.
5. Windows can cause similar problems with filenames containing
   unusual characters