Determining Whether a Directory is Writeable

What would be the best way in Python to determine whether a directory is writeable for the user executing the script? Since this will likely involve using the os module I should mention I'm running it under a *nix environment.

Solution 1:

Although what Christophe suggested is a more Pythonic solution, the os module does have the os.access function to check access:

os.access('/path/to/folder', os.W_OK) # W_OK is for writing, R_OK for reading, etc.

Solution 2:

It may seem strange to suggest this, but a common Python idiom is

It's easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission

Following that idiom, one might say:

Try writing to the directory in question, and catch the error if you don't have the permission to do so.