Handling Hebrew files and folders with Python 3.4 - filesystems

Question

I used Python 3.4 to create a programm that goes through E-mails and saves specific attachments to a file server.
Each file is saved to a specific destination depending on the sender's E-mail's address.
My problem is that the destination folders and the attachments are both in Hebrew and for a few attachments I get an error that the path does not exsist.
Now that's not possible because It can fail for one attachment but not for the others on the same Mail (the destination folder is decided by the sender's address).
I want to debug the issue but I cannot get python to display the file path it is trying to save correctly. (it's mixed hebrew and english and it always displays the path in a big mess, although it works correctly 95% of the time when the file is being saved to the file server)
So my questions are:
what should I add to this code so that it will proccess Hewbrew correctly?
Should I encode or decode somthing?
Are there characters I should avoid when proccessing the files?
here's the main piece of code that fails:
try:
found_attachments = False
for att in msg.Attachments:
_, extension = split_filename(str(att))
# check if attachment is not inline
if str(att) not in msg.HTMLBody:
if extension in database[sender][TYPES]:
file = create_file(str(att), database[sender][PATH], database[sender][FORMAT], time_stamp)
# This is where the program fails:
att.SaveAsFile(file)
print("Created:", file)
found_attachments = True
if found_attachments:
items_processed.append(msg)
else:
items_no_att.append(msg)
except:
print("Error with attachment: " + str(att) + " , in: " + str(msg))
and the create file function:
def create_file(att, location, format, timestamp):
"""
process an attachment to make it a file
:param att: the name of the attachment
:param location: the path to the file
:param format: the format of the file
:param timestamp: the time and date the attachment was created
:return: return the file created
"""
# create the file by the given format
if format == "":
output_file = location + "\\" + att
else:
# split file to name and type
filename, extension = split_filename(att)
# extract and format the time sent on
time = str(timestamp.time()).replace(":", ".")[:-3]
# extract and format the date sent on
day = str(timestamp.date())
day = day[-2:] + day[4:-2] + day[:4]
# initiate the output file
output_file = format
# add the original file name where needed
output_file = output_file.replace(FILENAME, filename)
# add the sent date where needed
output_file = output_file.replace(DATE, day)
# add the time sent where needed
output_file = output_file.replace(TIME, time)
# add the path and type
output_file = location + "\\" + output_file + "." + extension
print(output_file)
# add an index to the file if necessary and return it
index = get_file_index(output_file)
if index:
filename, extension = split_filename(output_file)
return filename + "(" + str(index) + ")." + extension
else:
return output_file
Thanks in advance, I would be happy to explain more or supply more code if needed.

Answer 1

I found out that the promlem was not using Hebrew. I found that there's a limit on the number of chars that the (path + filename) can hold (255 chars).
The files that failed excided that limit and that caused the problem