Python by Swaroop C H - HTML preview

Fourth Version

Example 10.4. Backup Script - The Fourth Version

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: backup_ver2.py import os, time

# 1. The files and directories to be backed up are specified in a list. source = ['/home/swaroop/byte', '/home/swaroop/bin']
# If you are using Windows, use source = [r'C:\Documents', r'D:\Work'] or something like that

# 2. The backup must be stored in a main backup directory
target_dir = '/mnt/e/backup/' # Remember to change this to what you will be using

# 3. The files are backed up into a zip file.
# 4. The current day is the name of the subdirectory in the main directory today = target_dir + time.strftime('%Y%m%d')
# The current time is the name of the zip archive
now = time.strftime('%H%M%S')

# Take a comment from the user to create the name of the zip file
comment = raw_input('Enter a comment --> ')
if len(comment) == 0: # check if a comment was entered

target = today + os.sep + now + '.zip'
else:
target = today + os.sep + now + '_' + \
comment.replace(' ', '_') + '.zip'
# Notice the backslash!

# Create the subdirectory if it isn't already there
if not os.path.exists(today):
os.mkdir(today) # make directory
print 'Successfully created directory', today

# 5. We use the zip command (in Unix/Linux) to put the files in a zip archive zip_command = "zip -qr '%s' %s" % (target, ' '.join(source))
# Run the backup
if os.system(zip_command) == 0:
print 'Successful backup to', target ^else: print 'Backup FAILED'

Output

$ python backup_ver4.py
Enter a comment --> added new examples
Successful backup to /mnt/e/backup/20041208/082156_added_new_examples.zip

$ python backup_ver4.py
Enter a comment -->
Successful backup to /mnt/e/backup/20041208/082316.zip

How It Works

This program now works! Let us go through the actual enhancements that we had made in version 3. We take in the user's comments using theraw_input function and then check if the user actually entered something by finding out the length of the input using thelen function. If the user has just pressed enter for some reason (maybe it was just a routine backup or no special changes were made), then we proceed as we have done before.

However, if a comment was supplied, then this is attached to the name of the zip archive just before the .zip extension. Notice that we are replacing spaces in the comment with underscores - this is because managing such filenames are much easier.