utility.py

# Copyright 2011-2013, Vinothan N. Manoharan, Thomas G. Dimiduk,
# Rebecca W. Perry, Jerome Fung, and Ryan McGorty, Anna Wang
#
# This file is part of HoloPy.
#
# HoloPy is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# HoloPy is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with HoloPy.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
"""
Misc utility functions to make coding more convenient

.. moduleauthor:: Thomas G. Dimiduk <tdimiduk@physics.harvard.edu>
"""

import os
import errno

def mkdir_p(path):
    '''
    Equivalent to mkdir -p at the shell, this function makes a
    directory and its parents as needed, silently doing nothing if it
    exists.

    Mainly a convenience function for including in scripts that crunch
    through a lot of files.
    '''
    try:
        os.makedirs(path)
    except OSError as exc:
        if exc.errno == errno.EEXIST:
            pass
        else: raise