The python community is very helpful to newbies like me. I did however manage to solve my problem in the meantime. I needed the modification time of certain files on various computers, but I didn't know the usernames ahead of time, so I used windows %userprofile% method. Python likes forward slashes in file names, whereas windows likes back slashes. Here is my script.
import os, re u = os.getenv("USERPROFILE") # python returns "c:\\documents and Settings\\user" # note the escaped backslashes which windows hates. # let's repair that with re.sub u = re.sub( r"\\", "/", u) f = u+"/dir1/file1" mod = os.path.getmtime(f) # success, now do something c = "copy '%userprofile%\dir1\file1' c:\dir2\file2" # note back slashes here which windows tolerates. # In the os.system context, python delivers unescaped slashes. os.system(c) # success I'm a retired old fart trying to learn python so I welcome criticism and advice. My original post was at http://groups.google.ca/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/59cc71e92bef1ee2?hl=en# -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list