windows file directory path in Python - python-3.x

Question

Can anyone please help me, I'm a newbie, I have a bit of code which I'm working on and I'm struggling with the file directory path. I have found other examples and tried them as shown below. The Python code is to email out a file called 'myfile.txt' form the folder 'F:\D\OneDrive\Python\Spyder\test'.
import smtplib
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
from email.mime.base import MIMEBase
from email import encoders
#sender's address
fromaddr = "username#gmail.com"
#receiptent's email address
toaddr = "username2#gmail.com"
msg = MIMEMultipart()
msg['From'] = fromaddr
msg['To'] = toaddr
msg['Subject'] = "Python test"
body = "Did it work Sam?"
msg.attach(MIMEText(body, 'plain'))
filename = "myfile.txt"
attachment = open("F:\D\OneDrive\Python\Spyder\test", "rb")
part = MIMEBase('application', 'octet-stream')
part.set_payload((attachment).read())
encoders.encode_base64(part)
part.add_header('Content-Disposition', "attachment; filename= %s" % filename)
msg.attach(part)
server = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.gmail.com', 587)
server.starttls()
server.login(fromaddr, "password")
text = msg.as_string()
server.sendmail(fromaddr, toaddr, text)
server.quit()
And I get this error -
PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied:
b'F:\\D\\OneDrive\\Python\\Spyder\\test'
If I change the line to -
attachment = open("F:\D\OneDrive\Python\Spyder\test\", "rb")
I get -
attachment = open("F:\D\OneDrive\Python\Spyder\test\", "rb")
^
SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal
If I change the line to -
attachment = open("F:\\D\\OneDrive\\Python\\Spyder\\test\\", "rb")
I get -
attachment = open("F:\\D\\OneDrive\\Python\\Spyder\\test\\", "rb")
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory:
'F:\\D\\OneDrive\\Python\\Spyder\\test\\'

Answer 1

If you work in Windows you must use windows path format. Method open with 'rb' parameters read file in byte mode if file is exist. You try read the directory!?
attachment = open('F:\\D\\OneDrive\\Python\\Spyder\\test\\myfile.txt", "rb")
equal
attachment = open(r'F:\D\OneDrive\Python\Spyder\test\myfile.txt', 'rb')

Answer 2

This represents the path correctly, but fails to provide a file name, because the trailing \ means a directory.
attachment = open("F:\\D\\OneDrive\\Python\\Spyder\\test\\myfile.txt", "rb")
What you likely want is
# Note the r and the lack of a trailing slash.
attachment = open(r"F:\D\OneDrive\Python\Spyder\test\myfile.txt", "rb")

Answer 3

I have found different code here and this works. Still can't work out why the original code does not work -
python program to rename the file with current date in MMDDYYY format and send email with attachment
Fixed code -
import smtplib
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
from email.mime.base import MIMEBase
from email import encoders
fromaddr = "username#gmail.com"
toaddr = "username2#gmail.com"
msg = MIMEMultipart()
msg['From'] = fromaddr
msg['To'] = toaddr
msg['Subject'] = "Please find the attachment"
body = "HI"
msg.attach(MIMEText(body, 'plain'))
filename = "myfile.txt"
#dt = str(datetime.datetime.now())
attachment = open("F:\\D\\OneDrive\\Python\\Spyder\\myfile.txt", "rb")
part = MIMEBase('application', 'octet-stream')
part.set_payload((attachment).read())
encoders.encode_base64(part)
part.add_header('Content-Disposition', "attachment; filename= %s" % filename)
msg.attach(part)
server = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.gmail.com', 587)
server.starttls()
server.login(fromaddr, "password")
text = msg.as_string()
server.sendmail(fromaddr, toaddr, text)
server.quit()