Is it possible to detect if a file has been moved in Python?

Question

I'm writing a backup script that runs through a folder structure and copies any files that have been changed since the last run through. I can detect modifications and creations through the files' properties (using getmtime and getctime) but I also need to be able to detect if a file has been moved. Is there a simple way of doing this without having to record the whole file structure and comparing on each update?

Note that this will only be used on a Windows system.

EDIT: If possible I'd like to avoid using external libraries.

Answer 1

You can run a daemon that monitors the parent folder for any changes, by using, E.G., the watchdog library:

import sys
import time
import logging
from watchdog.observers import Observer
from watchdog.events import LoggingEventHandler

if __name__ == "__main__":
    logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO,
                        format='%(asctime)s - %(message)s',
                        datefmt='%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
    path = sys.argv[1] if len(sys.argv) > 1 else '.'
    event_handler = LoggingEventHandler()
    observer = Observer()
    observer.schedule(event_handler, path, recursive=True)
    observer.start()
    try:
        while True:
            time.sleep(1)
    except KeyboardInterrupt:
        observer.stop()
    observer.join()