shutil module (directory input from terminal)

[klia]

hello folks

i am trying to tweak the current codes so that later when i call it from the terminal i can provide sourcefile and the destination file rather being fixed in the code. because now i have to specify the sourcefile and the destinationfile in codes and not left to be specified from the terminal. i want to be able to do this.

python shutil_copy.py sourcefile, destinationfile

import shutil 
shutil.copyfile(srcfile, dstfile) # copy data only

thanks

[bvdet]

The arguments passed to the script on the command line are available in list object sys.argv. Example at command prompt:

python arg.py argument1

# arg.py
import sys
 
print sys.argv
print sys.argv[1]

Output:

['arg.py', 'argument1']
argument1

[klia]

@bvdet

hey man, thanks for replay

i did the following

#arg.py
import sys
import shutil
shutil.copytree(sys.argv[0], sys.argv[1] )
 

and i got the following error, for the record i am trying to copy files from one directory to another one

waseem@Linux:~/Project2$ python copying_photos.py '/home/waseem/My Pictures/yemen 2008/2008/1' '/home/waseem/h'
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "copying_photos.py", line 4, in <module>
shutil.copytree(sys.argv[0], sys.argv[1] )
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/shutil.py", line 109, in copytree
names = os.listdir(src)
OSError: [Errno 20] Not a directory: 'copying_photos.py'

[kaarthikeyapreyan]

@klia
What u should do is modify the line

shutil.copytree(sys.argv[0], sys.argv[1] )

to

shutil.copytree(sys.argv[1], sys.argv[2] )

Make sure that the source is a directory, an existing one and the destination is a non-existent directory name.

[klia]

Thank you very much.

it worked perfectly