CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python
Utsav Gudhaka
Utsav Gudhaka

Reputation: 31

Opening other applications using python

I am using Ubuntu 12.04 on a 64bit laptop. I am trying to open an application using python code.

import os
os.system("open /home/utsav/ab.txt")

It gives the following error:

"Couldn't get a file descriptor referring to the console 256"

What command do I want to use?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 2193

Answers (4)

ajisht2
ajisht2

Reputation: 11

I tried this one. it works for me.

import os
os.system("command of your preferred app")

the command for app can be found from Desktop Entry tab of Properties of the preferred app.

Upvotes: 1

dmh
dmh

Reputation: 1059

For what it's worth, the Python 2.7.3 documentation says that the os module is deprecated and the subprocess module should be used instead. To execute a command this way you can use subprocess.call(args, ...) ("Using the subprocess module").

Based on the earlier answers you can use open for Mac OS X and gnome-open for a Linux distro running the Gnome desktop environment. (I checked gnome-open and xdg-open and both work on Fedora 16.) Windows is a bit tricky.

For Windows you need to use start, but if there are spaces in the path to the file or the filename, then it doesn't work right. Quoting the filename doesn't quite fix it, either, since start expects an unmarked argument with quotes around it to be a title (e.g. for a new cmd interface window). This is a problem since neither the title nor the file to open is a marked argument, so to get the call to work right you have to do something like start "DummyTitle" "Filename with spaces.ext".

So what we've got is:

  • Mac OS X: subprocess.call(['open','/path/to/file'])

  • Linux running Gnome DE: subprocess.call(['gnome-open','/path/to/file'])

  • Windows: subprocess.call(['start','"DummyTitle"','"C:\\Path\\to\\File.ext"'])

Or something like that.

For versions of Python before 2.7.3, you could us the os module with these args as strings as you suggest in your question (just altering the command portion of the system call). Note as well that there's os.startfile('/path/to/file') for Windows which will open the file with whatever the associated default is for that filetype, if you are going the deprecated os route.

Note that we still don't have a confirmed way of opening files on OSes using other desktop environments. Please suggest improvements to this answer!

Upvotes: 0

Makoto
Makoto

Reputation: 106430

The command you're using - open is actually another command referred to in the man pages as openvt, which opens a virtual terminal.

I don't think that's what you want to do, so you would want to use another command (such as gnome-open, xdg-open, geany, gedit, vim, or nano).

Upvotes: 1

mgilson
mgilson

Reputation: 309929

open works on OS-X, under ubuntu I end up using gnome-open (I don't know what the corresponding command is if you're using the k-desktop).

EDIT

based on the comment by Niklas B., you could probably also try xdg-open.

Upvotes: 0

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