I am using python for some backup tasks, and recently i found a problem
whe i have certain directory names.
Probably the problem is only in windows, however i would like You to know.
I verified the same behaviour in (WindowsXP, spanish, SP3) using Python
2.5.2 and also in 2.6.1 (installers from Python.org).

In my case i have directory names, beginning with year/month numbers.
Aparrently python is confusing something, so os.path.basename is not
working:

dd = 'C:\downloads\hacking\0812logcompress'
>>> os.path.basename(dd)
'hacking\x00812logcompress'
>>> dd = 'C:\downloads\hacking\logcompress'
>>> os.path.basename(dd)
'logcompress'