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<H1><A NAME="SECTION008100000000000000000">
6.1 <tt class="module">os</tt> --
         Miscellaneous operating system interfaces</A>
</H1>

<P>
<A NAME="module-os"></A>

<P>
This module provides a more portable way of using operating system
dependent functionality than importing a operating system dependent
built-in module like <tt class="module"><a href="module-posix.html">posix</a></tt> or <tt class="module">nt</tt>.

<P>
This module searches for an operating system dependent built-in module like
<tt class="module">mac</tt> or <tt class="module"><a href="module-posix.html">posix</a></tt> and exports the same functions and data
as found there.  The design of all Python's built-in operating system dependent
modules is such that as long as the same functionality is available,
it uses the same interface; for example, the function
<code>os.stat(<var>path</var>)</code> returns stat information about <var>path</var> in
the same format (which happens to have originated with the
POSIX interface).

<P>
Extensions peculiar to a particular operating system are also
available through the <tt class="module">os</tt> module, but using them is of course a
threat to portability!

<P>
Note that after the first time <tt class="module">os</tt> is imported, there is
<em>no</em> performance penalty in using functions from <tt class="module">os</tt>
instead of directly from the operating system dependent built-in module,
so there should be <em>no</em> reason not to use <tt class="module">os</tt>!

<P>
The <tt class="module">os</tt> module contains many functions and data values.
The items below and in the following sub-sections are all available
directly from the <tt class="module">os</tt> module.

<P>
<dl><dt><b><span class="typelabel">exception</span>&nbsp;<tt id='l2h-1504' xml:id='l2h-1504' class="exception">error</tt></b></dt>
<dd>
This exception is raised when a function returns a system-related
error (not for illegal argument types or other incidental errors).
This is also known as the built-in exception <tt class="exception">OSError</tt>.  The
accompanying value is a pair containing the numeric error code from
<tt class="cdata">errno</tt> and the corresponding string, as would be printed by the
C function <tt class="cfunction">perror()</tt>.  See the module
<tt class="module"><a href="module-errno.html">errno</a></tt><a id='l2h-1507' xml:id='l2h-1507'></a>, which contains names for the
error codes defined by the underlying operating system.

<P>
When exceptions are classes, this exception carries two attributes,
<tt class="member">errno</tt> and <tt class="member">strerror</tt>.  The first holds the value of
the C <tt class="cdata">errno</tt> variable, and the latter holds the corresponding
error message from <tt class="cfunction">strerror()</tt>.  For exceptions that
involve a file system path (such as <tt class="function">chdir()</tt> or
<tt class="function">unlink()</tt>), the exception instance will contain a third
attribute, <tt class="member">filename</tt>, which is the file name passed to the
function.
</dd></dl>

<P>
<dl><dt><b><tt id='l2h-1505' xml:id='l2h-1505'>name</tt></b></dt>
<dd>
The name of the operating system dependent module imported.  The
following names have currently been registered: <code>'posix'</code>,
<code>'nt'</code>, <code>'mac'</code>, <code>'os2'</code>, <code>'ce'</code>,
<code>'java'</code>, <code>'riscos'</code>.
</dd></dl>

<P>
<dl><dt><b><tt id='l2h-1506' xml:id='l2h-1506'>path</tt></b></dt>
<dd>
The corresponding operating system dependent standard module for pathname
operations, such as <tt class="module">posixpath</tt> or <tt class="module">macpath</tt>.  Thus,
given the proper imports, <code>os.path.split(<var>file</var>)</code> is
equivalent to but more portable than
<code>posixpath.split(<var>file</var>)</code>.  Note that this is also an
importable module: it may be imported directly as
<tt class="module"><a href="module-os.path.html">os.path</a></tt>.
</dd></dl>

<P>

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<A NAME="CHILD_LINKS"><STRONG>Subsections</STRONG></a>

<UL CLASS="ChildLinks">
<LI><A href="os-procinfo.html">6.1.1 Process Parameters</a>
<LI><A href="os-newstreams.html">6.1.2 File Object Creation</a>
<LI><A href="os-fd-ops.html">6.1.3 File Descriptor Operations</a>
<LI><A href="os-file-dir.html">6.1.4 Files and Directories</a>
<LI><A href="os-process.html">6.1.5 Process Management</a>
<LI><A href="os-path.html">6.1.6 Miscellaneous System Information</a>
<LI><A href="os-miscfunc.html">6.1.7 Miscellaneous Functions</a>
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<span class="release-info">Release 2.4.2, documentation updated on 28 September 2005.</span>
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