Recursively searching for files in Python

Question

I am trying to write code that uses a recursive function to search for files in a directory, and returns the path to the file that matches the search term. However, I keep getting this error when I use "../.." as the path name "PermissionError: [WinError 5] Access is denied: '../..\\AppData\\Local\\Application Data'".

import os
def main():

pathname=input('Please enter path name: ')
filenameinput=input('Please enter file name: ')

def disk_usage(path):

    if os.path.isdir(path):
        for filename in os.listdir(path):
            childpath = os.path.join(path, filename)
            if os.path.isdir(childpath):
                disk_usage(childpath)
            else:
                if childpath.endswith(filenameinput):
                    print(childpath)
#return 
disk_usage(pathname)
main()

I should not need to use os.walk() for this. I have it working but it returns several paths ending in the filename I specified and then returns the WinError 5 thing.

Answer 1

You're getting a permission error because Application Data is not a real folder in Windows 7+, it's a "junction" (symlink in Unix-speak) pointing to C:\\Program Files . It only exists for backwards compatibility.

You have two options:

1. You can read the junction with some Windows-specific native code, through win32file . See this SO answer.

2. You can catch the permission error, and ignore it (maybe print a warning message). This is probably the better option unless you really need to read this folder.