python popen working directory argument

Question

hi all,

I there a way to specify the running directory of command in subprocess.Popen()

like

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

and my python script locates in c:\programs\python.

IS there possible i can run c:\mytool\tool.exe in 'd:\test\local' ? it seems c:\mytool\tool.exe runs in my c:\programs\python as working directory.

Thanks a lot

Answer 1

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')

Answer 2

What you want is os.chdir(). Check out this example:

import os

f=os.popen('./checkfile.sh')
data=f.read()
f.close()
print data

os.chdir('../')
f=os.popen('tmpdir/checkfile.sh')
data=f.read()
f.close()
print data

And here's the contents of checkfile.sh:

#!/bin/bash

if [ -e testfile.txt ]
then
    echo "Yep"
else
    echo "Nope"
fi