How to run installed python script?

Question

I used distutils to install my python package, with this setup.py :

import distutils.core

args = {
    'name' :            'plugh',
    'version' :         '1.0',
    'scripts' :         [ "scripts/plugh" ],
    'packages':         [ "plugh" ],
}

d = distutils.core.setup(
    **args
)

On linux/mac, it works as expected:

% plugh
hello world
%

On windows, the script "plugh" does not run:

C:\Python25\Scripts>plugh
'plugh' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

C:\Python25\Scripts>

I found the bug report at http://bugs.python.org/issue7231 that the \Scripts directory is not added to PATH when you install python, so I applied the workaround described in that ticket (i.e. add C:\Python25\Scripts to PATH)

C:\Python25\Scripts>path
PATH=c:\Python25\Scripts;C:\Program Files\Legato\nsr\bin;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\
WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\Program Files\QuickTime\QTSystem\;c:\python2
5;c:\local;C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0

Is this something that just doesn't work on Windows? And if so, how exactly are you supposed to use python scripts on a windows machine?

I suppose that I could detect Windows, and add an additional script to the list, called "plugh.bat" containing something like:

@echo off
c:\python25\python.exec c:\python25\scripts\plugh %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9

but is that really the right answer here? I would have thought that with all the customizations that distutils contains for windows, there would be a better answer than that.

Answer 1

windows uses the extension of the file to determine how it will run.

Name your file plugh.py and use plugh.py on the prompt to call it.

Answer 2

I would expect most windows users who have a Python installation already around would be able to modify there path as you describe.

For everyone else on Windows, I might look into p2exe to bundle your executable into a single exe that includes the Python runtime. Then your windows users can just click on the exe and run the program.

Answer 3

1. If you use ActivePython, it will already add the C:\PythonXY\Scripts directory to your %PATH% (ActivePython 2.6 additionally adds PEP 370's %APPDATA%\Python\Scripts to %PATH%) during the installation.

2. For deploying scripts on Windows machine, better use Distribute which will take care of installing .exe wrappers for your scripts and invoking the actual Python with which your package was installed (to avoid conflict with multiple Python installations -- so naming your script to end .py is just not enough). For more on this topic, read about entry points in Distribute documentation.