How to close pyPDF "PdfFileReader" Class file handle

Question

this should be very simple question, for which I couldn't find answer by Google search: How to close file handle opened by pyPDF "PdfFileReader" Class

Here is snippet:

import os.path
from pyPdf import PdfFileReader

fname = 'my.pdf'
input = PdfFileReader(file(fname, "rb"))

os.rename(fname, 'my_renamed.pdf')

which raises error [32]

Thanks

Solution 1

The operating system is preventing a file from being re-named while something else has it open. This is a Good Thing (tm).

Python's with statement will automatically close the file after you're done reading/manipulating it.

with open(fname, "rb") as f:
  input = PdfFileReader(f, "rb"))

os.rename(fname, 'my_renamed.pdf')

If you're still on Python 2.5, you'll have to do a special import:

from __future__ import with_statement

Python 2.6 and above have with enabled by default.

Solution 2

If you really have to access this from the PdfFileReader object (that is: if you haven't got a reference to the file object yourself), you can use reader.stream.close()

Note that the PdfFileReader will need an open file object to access the pdf's content (it doesn't pull everything into memory from the start), so only close the file when you are done with the reader.

Solution 3

I would sugest to handle the file open out of the PdfFileReader

Your code will be:

import os.path
from pyPdf import PdfFileReader

fname = 'my.pdf'
fh = file(fname, "rb")
input = PdfFileReader(fh)

fh.close()
os.rename(fname, 'my_renamed.pdf')