I am trying to remove a file after reading from it, but getting "WindowsError: [Error 32] The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process"
file = open(self.filePath)
for line in file:
#do things
file.close()
os.remove(self.filePath) #throws error
os.rename(self.filePath, self.filePath + "old") #throws same error
any ideas??
thank you!
UPDATE: i just restarted my (windows 7) box, started eclipse, moved os.remove("c:\file\file.txt") to the first line of my script, ran and got the same error.
UPDATE 2: i used windows explorer to navigate to the file.. first time I couldn't delete it, it was being used by "System". second attempt the delete worked fine. the file is no longer there. now when I run os.remove("c:\file\file.txt") WindowsError: [Error 32] The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process: 'c:\file\file.txt' then i look in windows explorer and the file is back, empty. i can delete in explorer, then when i run the script to remove, it throws the error (and creates the empty file). any idea what could be going on here?
UPDATE 3: i am an idiot. i was opening the file in the initialization of an object when i tested by moving the "remove" to top of script, i should have put it at the top, not after creating my objects
sorry for taking your time, i've been working on something all weekend that's due tomorrow and panicked when it wouldn't run
In the command window, type the DEL /F file name command and press Enter to force delete the file that is in use.
remove() method in Python can be used to remove files, and the os. rmdir() method can be used to delete an empty folder. The shutil. rmtree() method can be used to delete a folder along with all of its files.
Another possibility is that a virus checker still has the file open at the time you try to delete or rename it. This doesn't happen often but when it does, it's really annoying to track down.
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