PermissionError: [WinError 32] The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process:

Question

I'm trying to test my own version of antiweb, which can be found here. However, I am testing it with Pythons unittest module. Here is the code:

import unittest
from unittest.mock import patch
from antiweb import main
import sys
import os
import tempfile
import shutil

class Test_Antiweb(unittest.TestCase):


def setUp(self):

    self.test_dir = tempfile.mkdtemp()
    self.testfile_source ="#@start()\n\n#@include(test_area)\n\n#@start(test_area)\n#This is test_area text\n#@(test_area)"
    with open(os.path.join(self.test_dir, "testfile.py"), "w") as test:
        test.write(self.testfile_source)

def test_antiweb(self):
    self.test_args = ['antiweb.py', '-i', "-o docs", os.path.join(self.test_dir, "testfile.py")]
    with patch.object(sys, 'argv', self.test_args):
        success = main()
    self.assertTrue(success)

def tearDown(self):

    shutil.rmtree(self.test_dir)



if __name__ == '__main__':
    unittest.main()

Everything works fine, except for the tearDown function. When executing the unittest without tearDown, the temp folder and his content are perfectly created. But with the tearDown function I get an error:

======================================================================
ERROR: test_antiweb (antiweb_tests.Test_Antiweb)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users\<username>\Documents\GitHub\antiweb\antiweb_tests.py", line 29,      in tearDown
shutil.rmtree(self.test_dir)
File "C:\Python34\lib\shutil.py", line 478, in rmtree
return _rmtree_unsafe(path, onerror)
File "C:\Python34\lib\shutil.py", line 377, in _rmtree_unsafe
onerror(os.rmdir, path, sys.exc_info())
File "C:\Python34\lib\shutil.py", line 375, in _rmtree_unsafe
os.rmdir(path)
PermissionError: [WinError 32] The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process: 'C:\\Users\\
<username>\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\tmp3lk01fn5'

When I then look at the temp folder the folder itself is still there, but is empty now. It would be too much to include my antiweb file here, so I have it linked here again if you need it.

Answer 1

Just had this happen to myself. Your problem is in your setup

self.test_dir = tempfile.mkdtemp() returns a tuple of file descriptor and path. You need to close the file descriptor before deleting.

def setUp(self):

    self.fd, self.test_dir = tempfile.mkdtemp()
...
def tearDown(self):
    os.close(self.fd)
    shutil.rmtree(self.test_dir)

See this article for a more detailed explaination.