Question

The following code:

gb = self.request.form['groupby']
typ = self.request.form['type']
tbl = self.request.form['table']

primary = self.request.form.get('primary', None)

if primary is not None:
    create = False
else:
create = True

mdb = tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile()
mdb.write(self.request.form['mdb'].read())
mdb.seek(0)

csv = tempfile.TemporaryFile()
conversion = subprocess.Popen(("/Users/jondoe/development/mdb-export", mdb.name, tbl,),stdout=csv)

Causes the this error when calling the last line i.e. ‘conversion =’ in OS X.

Traceback (innermost last):
  Module ZPublisher.Publish, line 119, in publish
  Module ZPublisher.mapply, line 88, in mapply
  Module ZPublisher.Publish, line 42, in call_object
  Module circulartriangle.mdbtoat.mdb, line 62, in __call__
  Module subprocess, line 543, in __init__
  Module subprocess, line 975, in _execute_child
OSError: [Errno 13] Permission denied

I’ve tried chmod 777 /Users/jondoe/development/mdb-export – what else might be required?

Answer 1

It seems the ‘Permissions denied error’ was orginally coming from Popen trying to execute mdb-export from the wrong location (and to compound things, with the wrong permissions).

If mdbtools is installed, the following works fine and inherits the correct permissions without the need for sudo etc.

subprocess.Popen(("mdb-export", mdb.name, tbl,),stdout=csv)

(Worth noting, I got myself into a muddle for a while, having forgotten that Popen is for opening executables, not folders or non-exectable files in folders)

Thanks for all your responses, they all made for interesting reading regardless 🙂