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finding a string given a directory, extension, and string?

Currently, I'm trying to determine how to return a list of filenames in the directory containing a particular string...
here's how i began:
def searchABatch(directory, extension, searchString):
for file in os.listdir(directory):
if fnmatch.fnmatch(file, extension):
return file
print(searchABatch("procedural", ".py", "foil"))
I expected it to print simply the files with the extension ".py" in my "procedural" directory but I am getting the following error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "pitcher20aLP2.py", line 38, in <module>
print(searchABatch("procedural", ".py", "foil"))
File "pitcher20aLP2.py", line 34, in searchABatch
for file in os.listdir(directory):
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'procedural'

You're trying to print contents of directory that doesn't exist in you current working directory. You should check if provided directory is actually a directory before calling os.listdir(), by using os.path.isdir()
def searchABatch(directory, extension, searchString):
if os.path.isdir(directory):
for file in os.listdir(directory):
if fnmatch.fnmatch(file, extension):
return file
print(searchABatch("procedural", ".py", "foil"))

Kevin is right, you are trying to find procedural in /home/2020/pitcher20a/procedural directory.
Check your working directory with os.getcwd() and change it needed by using os.chdir(path). Also, you can check if the directory is even a directory by using os.path.isdir() before using os.listdir().
Here is the python os module documentation - https://docs.python.org/2/library/os.html
Also, try to handle the errors gracefully.

Python File Renaming Issue

import os
for filename in os.listdir("."):
if not filename.startswith("renamefilesindir"):
for filename2 in os.listdir(filename):
if filename2.startswith("abcdefghij"):
newName = "[abcdefghij.com][abcde fghij][" + filename + "][" + filename2[11:16] + "].jpg"
print(filename2)
print(newName)
os.rename(filename2, newName)
I have a folder with a few hundred other folders inside of it. Inside each secondary folder is a number of files all similarly named. What I want to do is rename each file, but I get the following error whenever I run the above program.
abcdefghij_88741-lg.jpg
[abcdefghij.com][abcde fghij][3750][88741].jpg
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\directory\renamefilesindir.py", line 9, in <module>
os.rename(filename2, newName)
FileNotFoundError: [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified: 'abcdefghij_88741-lg.jpg' -> '[abcdefghij.com][abcde fghij][3750][88741].jpg'
I don't know what this means. It prints the existing file name, so I know it's found the file to be changed. Am I renaming the file wrong? What can't it find?

os.listdir contains just the names of the files and not the full paths. That's why your program actually tried to rename a file inside your current directory and it failed. So you could do the following:
import os.path
os.rename(os.path.join(filename, filename2), os.path.join(filename, newName))
since file with name filename2 is inside directory with name filename.

Python IOError: [Errno 2] from recursive directory call

The code below is part of a program I am writing that runs a method on every .py, .sh. or .pl file in a directory and its folders.
for root, subs, files in os.walk("."):
for a in files:
if a.endswith('.py') or a.endswith('.sh') or a.endswith('.pl'):
scriptFile = open(a, 'r')
writer(writeFile, scriptFile)
scriptFile.close()
else:
continue
When writing the program, it worked in the directory tree I wrote it in, but when I moved it to another folder to try it there I get this error message:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "versionTEST.py", line 75, in <module>
scriptFile = open(a, 'r')
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'enabledLogSources.sh'
I know something weird is going on because the file is most definitely there...

You'll need to prepend the root directory to your filename
scriptFile = open(root + '/' + a, 'r')

files contains only the file names, not the entire path. The path to the file can be obtained by joining the file name and the root:
scriptFile = open(os.path.join(root, a), "r")
You might want to have a look at
https://docs.python.org/2/library/os.html#os.walk

Error copying files

I'm trying to write a short Python script that will copy all files from a directory with a certain extension and place them in a different folder. Here is the script:
import os, shutil
source = "C:\\TCR_Calgary\\projects\\"
destination = "C:\\TCR_Calgary\\reference\\my_code\\city_of_calgary_scripts\\"
extension = ".py"
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(source):
for file in files:
if file.lower().endswith(extension):
shutil.copy2(file, destination)
This is the exception I get:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:/TCR_Calgary/reference/my_code/city_of_calgary_scripts/python_script_copier.py", line 13, in <module>
shutil.copy2(file, destination)
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Python26\lib\shutil.py", line 99, in copy2
copyfile(src, dst)
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Python26\lib\shutil.py", line 47, in copyfile
raise Error, "`%s` and `%s` are the same file" % (src, dst)
shutil.Error: `AnnoMover.py` and `C:\TCR_Calgary\reference\my_code\city_of_calgary_scripts\AnnoMover.py` are the same file
I'm confused because AnnoMover.py is not in the destination folder. In my mind, the original file and its copy would be "the same" although their paths would not. There's clearly something I'm not understanding here. Any help is much appreciated!
Version: Python 2.6
Interpeter: PyCharm Community Edition 3.4
OS: Windows 7

The exception message could be a little clearer, but the last line should be shutil.copy2(os.path.join(source, file), destination) so that the source is fully qualified.

I got it to work:
import os, shutil
source = r"C:\TCR_Calgary\projects"
destination = r"C:\TCR_Calgary\reference\my_code\city_of_calgary_scripts"
extension = ".py"
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(source):
for file in files:
if file.lower().endswith(extension):
file_path = os.path.realpath(os.path.join(root, file))
shutil.copy2(file_path, destination)

shutil.rmtree() raises exception WindowsError: Access is denied:

Trying to automatically delete files with a python script and i get:
Traceback (most recent call last):
Python script "5", line 8, in <module>
shutil.rmtree(os.path.join(root, d))
File "shutil.pyc", line 221, in rmtree
File "shutil.pyc", line 219, in rmtree
WindowsError: [Error 5] Access is denied: 'C:\\zDump\\TVzip\\Elem.avi'
using this
import os
import shutil
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(eg.globals.tvzip):
for f in files:
os.remove(os.path.join(root, f))
for d in dirs:
shutil.rmtree(os.path.join(root, d))
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(eg.globals.tvproc):
for f in files:
os.remove(os.path.join(root, f))
for d in dirs:
shutil.rmtree(os.path.join(root, d))
All is being run as administrator, any help?

While I can't comment on the Windows permissions (or lack there of), assuming you have correct perms, then an open file handle is really likely.
I just wanted to mention, shutil.rmtree will clear out any files in the directory it removes... so you can chop your algorithm in half, and stop removing files one by one.

Typically, this error comes up on Windows when the path you are trying to remove is read-only. You could try something along the lines of the below which may work:
import stat
import os
def make_dir_writable(function, path, exception):
"""The path on Windows cannot be gracefully removed due to being read-only,
so we make the directory writable on a failure and retry the original function.
"""
os.chmod(path, stat.S_IWRITE)
function(path)
if os.path.exists(path):
shutil.rmtree(path, onerror=make_dir_writable)
Documentation on the subject can be found here: https://docs.python.org/3.9/library/shutil.html#shutil.rmtree