Hey everyone,
I'm writing a pretty basic application in python (it's only one file at the moment). My question is how do I get it so the python script is able to be run in /usr/bin without the .py extension?
For example, instead of running
python htswap.py args
from the directory where it currently is, I want to be able to cd to any directory and do
htswap args
Thanks in advance!
The first line of the file should be
#!/usr/bin/env python
You should remove the .py extension, and make the file executable, using
chmod ugo+x htswap
EDIT: Thomas points out correctly that such scripts should be placed in /usr/local/bin rather than in /usr/bin. Please upvote his answer (at the expense of mine, perhaps. Seven upvotes (as we speak) for this kind of stuff is ridiculous)
Shebang?
#!/usr/bin/env python
Put that at the beginning of your file and you're set
add #!/usr/bin/env python to the very top of htswap.py and rename htswap.py to htswap then do a command: chmod +x htswap to make htswap executable.
Simply strip off the .py extension by renaming the file. Then, you have to put the following line at the top of your file:
#!/usr/bin/env python
env is a little program that sets up the environment so that the right python interpreter is executed.
You also have to make your file executable, with the command
chmod a+x htswap
And dump it into /usr/local/bin. This is cleaner than /usr/bin, because the contents of that directory are usually managed by the operating system.
I see in the official Python tutorials, http://docs.python.org/tutorial/index.html, that
#! /usr/bin/env python
is used just as the answers above suggest. Note that you can also use the following
#!/usr/bin/python
This is the style you'll see for in shell scripts, like bash scripts. For example
#!/bin/bash
Seeing that the official tuts go with the first option that is probably your best bet. Consistency in code is something to strive for!