Bad file names, i.e. filenames the OS considers illegal, will cause functions in the os.path module to raise an error.
Example: import os.path print os.path.getsize( 'c:/pytest/*.py' ) On Windows XP using Python 2.5.2 I get the following traceback: Traceback (most recent call last): File "<string>", line 74, in run_nodebug File "<Module1>", line 3, in <module> File "C:\Python\lib\ntpath.py", line 228, in getsize return os.stat(filename).st_size WindowsError: [Error 123] The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect: 'c:/pytest/*.py' Since there are many places a user can enter a path name (interactively, via config files, etc) in most applications, is there an os sensitive function that can be used to detect bad file names? As a matter of best practice, how do you wrap your use of file and path names to prevent unexpected failures? (There has to be a better alternative than try/except blocks around each use of an os.path function in one's code?) Thanks, Malcolm -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list