CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonwindows
wstk
wstk

Reputation: 1270

Run python script from another directory

I feel a little foolish that I don't know this, but I tried to do it today and was surprised when it didn't work....

I have a directory C:\test with a demo script, lets call it demo.py

  1. If i am in C:\test then I can just do python demo.py. Easy
  2. I could also use a relative path, so from C:\, it's python test\demo.py

What if C:\test is on the path?

I was expecting to be able to now do python demo.py from anywhere however...

python: can't open file 'demo.py': [Errno 2] No such file or directory

I feel foolish because I thought this was straightforward, but I have searched around and have not found a solution. Am I fundamentally misunderstanding something here about how the Python interpreter finds scripts to run? I don't think this is anything to do with PYTHONPATH, as I understood that to relate to loading of modules inside scripts.

This is on Windows 7, by the way.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 6387

Answers (1)

Serge Ballesta
Serge Ballesta

Reputation: 149175

The PATH is only used to search for commands. A first way is that a Python script can be used directly as a command and in that case the PATH will be used: just use demo.py instead of python demo.py.

It will rely on OS specific ways. On Windows, file type (given by the extension - here .py) can be given default application to process them, while on Unix-like, the first line of a script can declare the program that will process it.

Alternatively, python allows to launch a module that will be searched in the PYTHONPATH (not PATH) by using python -m module or for Windows py -m module.

Upvotes: 1

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