Using Python to print the amount of space left in a network shared drive

Question

I want to print the amount of space remaining (in GB) on a network share (M: drive), and then take that value and add it to an Excel spreadsheet. I'm very new to programming and need all the help I can get really!

Thanks in advance

EDIT:

Here is what I've managed so far.

import ctypes
from win32com.client import Dispatch
import pythoncom

def drivespace():
    #get space in bytes
    free_bytes = ctypes.c_ulonglong(0)
    ctypes.windll.kernel32.GetDiskFreeSpaceExW(ctypes.c_wchar_p(u'M:\\'), None, None ctypes.pointer(free_bytes))

    #calculate space in GB
    free_GB = free_bytes.value/1024/1024/1024
    print(free_GB)

    #input data to Excel
    xl = Dispatch ('Excel.Application')
    xl.visible = 0
    xl.Workbooks.Add (r'C:\Location\Location1\Location2\Book1.xlsm')
    xl.Run('Down1') #macro inside the workbook, just to move the cell down 1 row
    #here is where I need some help... something to input the data to the active cell
    #xl.Cells( ?? ACTIVE CELL HERE BUT DON'T KNOW HOW ?? ).value=(free_GB)
    xl.Quit()

    #release held Excel process
    pythoncom.CoUninitialize()

So basically, I have everything sorted other than actually printing the data in to the active cell. Does anybody have any pywin32 knowledge that may be able to help me do this?

Thanks a bunch!

Answer 1

Edited following comment

import ctypes, os, pythoncom
from win32com.client import Dispatch

def drivespace(drive, xl_path, col):
    #get space in bytes
    free_bytes = ctypes.c_ulonglong(0)
    ctypes.windll.kernel32.GetDiskFreeSpaceExW(ctypes.c_wchar_p(drive), \
                                               None, None, ctypes.pointer(free_bytes))

    #calculate space in GB
    free_GB = free_bytes.value/1024/1024/1024
    print(free_GB)

    #input data to Excel
    xl = Dispatch('Excel.Application')
    xl.visible = 0
    wb = xl.Workbooks.Open(xl_path)
    ws = wb.Worksheets(1)

    # initialise values
    empty = False
    row = 1

    # loop until first empty cell in this column
    while not empty:
        val = ws.Range(col+str(row)).value
        print val
        if val == None:
            print "Found first empty cell! Writing Value..."
            ws.Range(col+str(row)).value = free_GB
            empty = True
        row += 1

    wb.Close(True)
    xl.Quit()

    #release held Excel process
    pythoncom.CoUninitialize()

def main():
    drive = 'C:\\'
    xl_path = os.path.join(os.getenv('so'),'free_space_to_excel','Book1.xlsm')
    xl_column = 'A'
    drivespace(drive, xl_path, xl_column)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

You will just need to change the values in the main procedure to set them to your drive, xl_path etc. This takes an additional arguement for a column letter and finds the first available cell in that column. I think this is a safer approach than relying on a particular cell being active when you open the sheet.

Answer 2

I think you probably need to break this up into sub problems, have a go at each and post a question for any that you are stuck on, including your attempts in the post. Here are some suggested steps and areas to look into for them:

1. Work out space remaining on drive. There is a thread here which may be helpful for this.
2. To write to Excel there is a module named xlwt, which can be downloaded from here. I have also found a brief tutorial for using this here.

EDIT

For Python 3.x I found a port of xlwt which may be worth a try. I found a post here pointing the a github repository here. I could not see an installer, but it should be straight forward to build from source.

You will need to download everything from this github page into a folder and then cd to that directory from the command line and run

Python setup.py install