Subprocess Changing Directory

Subprocess changing directory

What your code tries to do is call a program named cd ... What you want is call a command named cd.

But cd is a shell internal. So you can only call it as

subprocess.call('cd ..', shell=True) # pointless code! See text below.

But it is pointless to do so. As no process can change another process's working directory (again, at least on a UNIX-like OS, but as well on Windows), this call will have the subshell change its dir and exit immediately.

What you want can be achieved with os.chdir() or with the subprocess named parameter cwd which changes the working directory immediately before executing a subprocess.

For example, to execute ls in the root directory, you either can do

wd = os.getcwd()
os.chdir("/")
subprocess.Popen("ls")
os.chdir(wd)

or simply

subprocess.Popen("ls", cwd="/")

Python - Change working directory in subprocess.call syntax

I'm suspecting that if the ./ isn't passed to subprocess, on some systems the command may not be found (security issues, . not in system path)

The other issue could be a wrong directory/command not really in the directory.

Obviously I couldn't test that, but that's a safe way (and with error checking) to execute a command in a directory, so it should fix your issue, or at least pinpoint a path problem:

command_dir = '/path/to/sh_script_dir'
command_file = os.path.join(command_dir,"script_name.sh")
if not os.path.isfile(command_file):
    raise Exception("{}: no such file".format(command_file))

subprocess.call([command_file,var1,var2], cwd = command_dir)

compose your command file with the full path (stored in a variable)
test this full path existence prior to running your command (helps to track down a path error)
don't use shlex.split when you can pass the list of arguments instead

How can I specify working directory for popen

subprocess.Popen takes a cwd argument to set the Current Working Directory; you'll also want to escape your backslashes ('d:\\test\\local'), or use r'd:\test\local' so that the backslashes aren't interpreted as escape sequences by Python. The way you have it written, the \t part will be translated to a tab.

So, your new line should look like:

subprocess.Popen(r'c:\mytool\tool.exe', cwd=r'd:\test\local')

To use your Python script path as cwd, import os and define cwd using this:

os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))

Python 3: subprocess, changing directory

I have discovered the answer with some help from various stackoverflow posts on the topic as well as stumbling through possible solutions. It was not easy!

self.relativePath = os.path.dirname(sys.argv[0])

self.relativePath1 = self.relativePath + '\\your_subdirectoryHERE\\'

Be sure to include double slashes, to match os.path.dirname(sys.argv[0])

self.process = subprocess.Popen(self.relativePath1 + 'flare.exe -command', cwd=self.relativePath1)

How to change directory and run further command in that directory using python?

you can use && instead pipe |. so, in this case, will git status will only work if cd /some_directory worked. && means to execute the next command if the previous exited with status 0. Change the path according to your OS and directory.

| : The pipe operator, it passes the output of one command as input to
another. A command built from the pipe operator is called a pipeline.

what-are-the-shells-control-and-redirection-operators

import os

os.system(r"cd /home/code/ && ls && git status")

How to run shell commands in different directory using python subprocess command?

The subprocess methods all accept a cwd keyword argument.

import subprocess

d = subprocess.check_output(
    ['ls'], cwd='/home/you/Desktop')

Obviously, replace /home/you/Desktop with the actual directory you want.

Most well-written shell commands will not require you to run them in any particular directory, but if that's what you want, this is how you do it.

If this doesn't solve your problem, please update your question to include the actual code which doesn't behave like you expect.

(Of course, a subprocess is a really poor way to get a directory listing, and ls is a really poor way to get a directory listing if you really want to use a subprocess. Probably try os.listdir('/home/you/Desktop') if that's what you actually want. But I'm guessing you are just providing ls as an example of an external command.)

Subprocess Changing Directory