⁉️ Interview question
Can you explain the behavior of Python’s shutil.copyfile() when copying a file that is currently being written to by another process, and how does the underlying system call interact with file locks and inodes? What happens if the source file is deleted during the copy?

When `shutil.copyfile()` copies a file that's actively being written to, it reads the file at the moment the system call opens it. If the source file is deleted during the copy, the file may still be accessible as long as it remains open by the writing process due to Unix-like filesystem semantics (file deletion doesn't free inode until all references are closed). However, the copy operation might fail or produce incomplete data if the file size changes dramatically during the read. Additionally, if the source uses mandatory locking, the copy could be blocked or result in EACCES errors.

#️⃣ tags: #Python #AdvancedPython #FileHandling #shutil #SystemCalls #FileLocks #Inodes #Unix #ConcurrentWriting #CopyOperation #FileDeletion

By: t.iss.one/DataScienceQ 🚀