Special characters in OSX filename ? (Python os.rename)

Question

I am trying to rename some files automatically on OSX with a python script. But I fail to work with special characters like forward slash etc.:

oldname = "/test"
newname = "/test(1\/10)"
os.rename(oldname, newname)

I think I do have an encoding problem. But different tries with re.escape or using UTF-8 unicode encodings havent been successful for me. Would you have a hint?

Thanks! Marco

Answer 1

What most of the file systems have in common is that they do not allow directory separators (slashes) in filenames.

That said, in Mac OS X you can have file names appear with slashes in finder, you can try replacing slashes with :.

Answer 2

If you're trying to rename the folder '/test' you'll need to run python as root, otherwise you won't have privileges to change stuff in the root. Furthermore the slash in your new name won't work as python will try find a directory "/test(1", so you'll have to let the directory separator go. Also this from the python documentation might be helpful.

Rename the file or directory src to dst. If dst is a directory, OSError will be raised. On Unix, if dst exists and is a file, it will be replaced silently if the user has permission. The operation may fail on some Unix flavors if src and dst are on different filesystems. If successful, the renaming will be an atomic operation (this is a POSIX requirement). On Windows, if dst already exists, OSError will be raised even if it is a file; there may be no way to implement an atomic rename when dst names an existing file. Availability: Unix, Windows.