fix copy_file with a folder as the target

easybuild/tools/filetools.py

@@ -2419,12 +2419,16 @@ def copy_file(path, target_path, force_in_dry_run=False):
         try:
             # check whether path to copy exists (we could be copying a broken symlink, which is supported)
             path_exists = os.path.exists(path)
+            # If target is a folder, the target_path will be a file with the same name inside the folder
+            if os.path.isdir(target_path):
+                target_path = os.path.join(target_path, os.path.basename(path))
             target_exists = os.path.exists(target_path)
+
             if target_exists and path_exists and os.path.samefile(path, target_path):
                 _log.debug("Not copying %s to %s since files are identical", path, target_path)
             # if target file exists and is owned by someone else than the current user,
-            # try using shutil.copyfile to just copy the file contents
-            # since shutil.copy2 will fail when trying to copy over file metadata (since chown requires file ownership)
+            # copy just the file contents (shutil.copyfile instead of shutil.copy2)
+            # since copying the file metadata/permissions will fail since chown requires file ownership
             elif target_exists and os.stat(target_path).st_uid != os.getuid():
                 shutil.copyfile(path, target_path)
                 _log.info("Copied contents of file %s to %s", path, target_path)

test/framework/filetools.py

@@ -1856,6 +1856,19 @@ def test_copy_file(self):
             # printing this message will make test suite fail in Travis/GitHub CI,
             # since we check for unexpected output produced by the tests
             print("Skipping overwrite-file-owned-by-other-user copy_file test (%s is missing)" % test_file_to_overwrite)
+        # Copy a file to a directory owned by some other user, e.g. /tmp (owned by root)
+        # This might be a common choice for e.g. --copy-ec
+        target_file_path = tempfile.mktemp("easybuild", dir="/tmp")
+        test_file_to_copy = os.path.join(self.test_prefix, os.path.basename(target_file_path))
+        ft.write_file(test_file_to_copy, test_file_contents)
+        try:
+            ft.copy_file(test_file_to_copy, '/tmp')
+            self.assertEqual(ft.read_file(target_file_path), test_file_contents)
+        finally:
+            try:
+                os.remove(target_file_path)
+            except FileNotFoundError:
+                pass
 
         # also test behaviour of copy_file under --dry-run
         build_options = {