Question

So, I want to create a simple script to create directories based upon the file names contained within a certain folder.

My method looks like this:

def make_new_folders(filenames, destination):
    """
    Take a list of presets and create new directories using mkdir
    """
    for filename in filenames:
        path = '"%s/%s/"' %  (destination, filename)
        subprocess.call(["mkdir", path])

For some reason I can’t get the command to work.

If I pass in a file named “Test Folder”, i get an error such as:

mkdir: "/Users/soundteam/Desktop/PlayGround/Test Folder: No such file or directory

Printing the ‘path’ variable results in:
“/Users/soundteam/Desktop/PlayGround/Test Folder/”

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Answer 1

You don’t need the double quotes. subprocess passes the parameters directly to the process, so you don’t need to prepare them for parsing by a shell. You also don’t need the trailing slash, and should use os.path.join to combine path components:

path = os.path.join(destination, filename)

EDIT: You should accept @Fabian’s answer, which explains that you don’t need subprocess at all (I knew that).