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Move files one by one to newly created directories for each file with Python 3

What I have is an initial directory with a file inside D:\BBS\file.x and multiple .txt files in the work directory D:\
What I am trying to do is to copy the folder BBS with its content and incrementing it's name by number, then copy/move each existing .txt file to the newly created directory to make it \BBS1, \BBS2, ..., BBSn (depends on number of the txt).
Visual example of the Before and After:
Initial view of the \WorkFolder
Desired view of the \WorkFolder
Right now I have reached only creating of a new directory and moving txt in it but all at once, not as I would like to. Here's my code:
from pathlib import Path
from shutil import copy
import shutil
import os
wkDir = Path.cwd()
src = wkDir.joinpath('BBS')
count = 0
for content in src.iterdir():
addname = src.name.split('_')[0]
out_folder = wkDir.joinpath(f'!{addname}')
out_folder.mkdir(exist_ok=True)
out_path = out_folder.joinpath(content.name)
copy(content, out_path)
files = os.listdir(wkDir)
for f in files:
if f.endswith(".txt"):
shutil.move(f, out_folder)
I kindly request for assistance with incrementing and copying files one by one to the newly created directory for each as mentioned.
Not much skills with python in general. Python3 OS Windows
Thanks in advance

Now, I understand what you want to accomplish. I think you can do it quite easily by only iterating over the text files and for each one you copy the BBS folder. After that you move the file you are currently at. In order to get the folder_num, you may be able to just access the file name's characters at the particular indexes (e.g. f[4:6]) if the name is always of the pattern TextXX.txt. If the prefix "Text" may vary, it is more stable to use regular expressions like in the following sample.
Also, the function shutil.copytree copies a directory with its children.
import re
import shutil
from pathlib import Path
wkDir = Path.cwd()
src = wkDir.joinpath('BBS')
for f in os.listdir(wkDir):
if f.endswith(".txt"):
folder_num = re.findall(r"\d+", f)[0]
target = wkDir.joinpath(f"{src.name}{folder_num}")
# copy BBS
shutil.copytree(src, target)
# move .txt file
shutil.move(f, target)

Is there a way to be able to use a variable path using os

The goal is to run through a half stable and half variable path.
I am trying to run through a path (go to lowest folder which is called Archive) and fill a list with files that have a certain ending. This works quite well for a stable path such as this.
fileInPath='\\server123456789\provider\COUNTRY\CATEGORY\Archive
My code runs through the path (recursive) and lists all files that have a certain ending. This works well. For simplicity I will just print the file name in the following code.
import csv
import os
fileInPath='\\\\server123456789\\provider\\COUNTRY\\CATEGORY\\Archive
fileOutPath=some path
csvSeparator=';'
fileList = []
for subdir, dirs, files in os.walk(fileInPath):
for file in files:
if file[-3:].upper()=='PAR':
print (file)
The problem is that I can manage to have country and category to be variable e.g. by using *

The standard library module pathlib provides a simple way to do this.
Your file list can be obtained with
from pathlib import Path
list(Path("//server123456789/provider/".glob("*/*/Archive/*.PAR"))
Note I'm using / instead of \\ pathlib handles the conversion for you on windows.

Writing zipfile in Python 3.6 without absolute path

I am trying to write a zip file using Python's zipfile module that starts at a certain subfolder but still maintains the tree structure from that subfolder. For example, if I pass "C:\Users\User1\OneDrive\Documents", the zip file will contain everything from Documents onward, with all of Documents' subfolders maintained within Documents. I have the following code:
import zipfile
import os
import datetime
def backup(src, dest):
"""Backup files from src to dest."""
base = os.path.basename(src)
now = datetime.datetime.now()
newFile = f'{base}_{now.month}-{now.day}-{now.year}.zip'
# Set the current working directory.
os.chdir(dest)
if os.path.exists(newFile):
os.unlink(newFile)
newFile = f'{base}_{now.month}-{now.day}-{now.year}_OVERWRITE.zip'
# Write the zipfile and walk the source directory tree.
with zipfile.ZipFile(newFile, 'w') as zip:
for folder, _ , files in os.walk(src):
print(f'Working in folder {os.path.basename(folder)}')
for file in files:
zip.write(os.path.join(folder, file),
arcname=os.path.join(
folder[len(os.path.dirname(folder)) + 1:], file),
compress_type=zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
print(f'\n---------- Backup of {base} to {dest} successful! ----------\n')
I know I have to use the arcname parameter for zipfile.write(), but I can't figure out how to get it to maintain the tree structure of the original directory. The code as it is now writes every subfolder to the first level of the zip file, if that makes sense. I've read several posts suggesting I use os.path.relname() to chop off the root, but I can't seem to figure out how to do it properly. I am also aware that this post looks similar to others on Stack Overflow. I have read those other posts and cannot figure out how to solve this problem.

The arcname parameter will set the exact path within the zip file for the file you are adding. You issue is when you are building the path for arcname you are using the wrong value to get the length of the prefix to remove. Specifically:
arcname=os.path.join(folder[len(os.path.dirname(folder)) + 1:], file)
Should be changed to:
arcname=os.path.join(folder[len(src):], file)

Compile latex from python

I have made some python function for compiling passed string as pdf file using latex. The function works as expected and has been quite useful, therefore I look for ways to improve it.
The code which I have:
def generate_pdf(pdfname,table):
"""
Generates the pdf from string
"""
import subprocess
import os
f = open('cover.tex','w')
tex = standalone_latex(table)
f.write(tex)
f.close()
proc=subprocess.Popen(['pdflatex','cover.tex'])
subprocess.Popen(['pdflatex',tex])
proc.communicate()
os.unlink('cover.tex')
os.unlink('cover.log')
os.unlink('cover.aux')
os.rename('cover.pdf',pdfname)
The problem with the code is that it creates bunch of files named cover in the working directory which afterwards are removed.
How to avoid of creating unneeded files at the working directory?
Solution
def generate_pdf(pdfname,tex):
"""
Genertates the pdf from string
"""
import subprocess
import os
import tempfile
import shutil
current = os.getcwd()
temp = tempfile.mkdtemp()
os.chdir(temp)
f = open('cover.tex','w')
f.write(tex)
f.close()
proc=subprocess.Popen(['pdflatex','cover.tex'])
subprocess.Popen(['pdflatex',tex])
proc.communicate()
os.rename('cover.pdf',pdfname)
shutil.copy(pdfname,current)
shutil.rmtree(temp)

Use a temporary directory. Temporary directories are always writable and can be cleared by the operating system after a restart. tempfile library lets you create temporary files and directories in a secure way.
path_to_temporary_directory = tempfile.mkdtemp()
# work on the temporary directory
# ...
# move the necessary files to the destination
shutil.move(source, destination)
# delete the temporary directory (recommended)
shutil.rmtree(path_to_temporary_directory)

Python operating on files in a folder - 'for file in folder'

I know a folder's path, and for every file in the folder I would like to do some operations. So essentially what I'm looking for is a for file in folder type of code that gives me access to the files in variables.
What is the Python way of doing this?
Thanks
EDIT - example: my folder will contain a bunch of XML files, and I have a python routine already to parse them into variables I need.

This will allow you to access and print all the file names in your current directory:
import os
for filename in os.listdir('.'):
print filename
The os module contains much more information about the various functions available. The os.listdir() function can also take any other paths you want to specify.

Does the glob library look helpful?
It will perform some pattern matching, and accepts both absolute and relative addresses.
>>> import glob
>>> for file in glob.glob("*.xml"): # only loops over XML documents
print file

For people coming at this from a python version 3.5 or later, we now have the superior os.scandir() which has tremendous performance improvements over os.listdir()
For more information about the improvements/benefits, check out https://benhoyt.com/writings/scandir/