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Aaron Tp
Aaron Tp

Reputation: 345

Python: Running Daemon Processes in Windows7

I had a program that Scraped certain data from certain Web-Pages, and when the Web-Pages changed, acted accordingly.

How would one set up the program so it continues to run in the background?

I don't need any specifics

I'm just really confused on this concept and would appreciate whatever help anybody has to offer.

Upvotes: 5

Views: 9489

Answers (4)

Dima Tisnek
Dima Tisnek

Reputation: 11779

start path-to-pythonw.exe your-code.py

pythonw means without console.

start means start on background.

if your python is installed system-wide, you can probably start your-code.pyw

.pyw is associated with pythonw.exe

remember you cannot use print (to stdout) in this case.

Upvotes: 10

Michael Dillon
Michael Dillon

Reputation: 32392

There is no concept of "background" in Windows. But the UNIX shell concept of a background process can be reasonably emulated by running your Python script as a Windows service. There are a couple of suggestions in this question: Is it possible to run a Python script as a service in Windows? If possible, how?

For casual use, I suggest that you learn how to use srvany from the second answer.

Upvotes: 0

Escualo
Escualo

Reputation: 42132

You simply need to leave your program running! Please google "python daemon" and see how to implement a persistent background process in Python.

Now, you cannot know when a website changes unless you poll it. If the website is well designed, the page you are trying to poll will have a "Last-Modified" header, you can make a "HEAD" request every so often (be nice: don't poll like crazy) and act when Last-Modified is >= than the one on record. If the site is not well designed, it will not have a reliable Last-Modified or ETAG header, in that case you will have to parse manually and check for changes yourself.

Cheers.

Upvotes: -1

John Zwinck
John Zwinck

Reputation: 249464

If you want to be able to just start your process and have it background itself and do a few more typical things that "daemon" processes do in Unix, look here: How do you create a daemon in Python?

Upvotes: 0

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