Develop Reference

python subprocess.call() doesn't work with multiline shell commands

I would like to run this multiline shell commands:
echo 'a=?'
read a
echo "a=$a"
from a python script, using the subprocess.call() method.
I wrote this, in test.py file:
import shlex, subprocess
args = ["echo", 'a=?',"read", "a", "echo", "a=$a"]
subprocess.call(args)
and when I execute it, I have in terminal this report:
Armonicus#MyMacs-iMac MyNewFolder % python test.py
a=? read a echo a=$a
which is not at least close to what I expect.
Can I have some support from anyone, please?

There are a couple of issues with your approach here.
First, if what you're trying to do is prompt the user for input from the command line, then you can use Python builtins instead of a subprocess:
a = input('a=?')
print(a)
If you do want to call a subprocess with multiple commands, you need to either make separate calls for each command, or invoke a shell and execute the commands within it. For example:
subprocess.call("echo 'a=?'; read a; echo $a", shell=True)

How to check if a script is being called from terminal or from another script

I am writing a python script and i want to execute some code only if the python script is being run directly from terminal and not from any another script.
How to do this in Ubuntu without using any extra command line arguments .?
The answer in here DOESN't WORK:
Determine if the program is called from a script in Python
Here's my directory structure
home
|-testpython.py
|-script.sh
script.py contains
./testpython.py
when I run ./script.sh i want one thing to happen .
when I run ./testpython.py directly from terminal without calling the "script.sh" i want something else to happen .
how do i detect such a difference in the calling way . Getting the parent process name always returns "bash" itself .

I recommend using command-line arguments.
script.sh
./testpython.py --from-script
testpython.py
import sys
if "--from-script" in sys.argv:
# From script
else:
# Not from script

You should probably be using command-line arguments instead, but this is doable. Simply check if the current process is the process group leader:
$ sh -c 'echo shell $$; python3 -c "import os; print(os.getpid.__name__, os.getpid()); print(os.getpgid.__name__, os.getpgid(0)); print(os.getsid.__name__, os.getsid(0))"'
shell 17873
getpid 17874
getpgid 17873
getsid 17122
Here, sh is the process group leader, and python3 is a process in that group because it is forked from sh.
Note that all processes in a pipeline are in the same process group and the leftmost is the leader.

Sending CMD command prompts using Subprocess (Python)

This is a beginner level question for anyone pro in subprocess.
In Windows, is it possible for me to send the following CMD commands using subprocesssuch that they are executed one after another in a single shell:
cd C:\Users\User\myvirtualenvs\project1
Scripts\activate.bat
Hello.py
Effectively, I am trying to load the Virtualenv without having to manually myself touch CMD prompt.
Thanks in advance :)

Just like mentioned in the Comment with &&:
from subprocess import call
call(r'cd C:\ && echo 123 && dir', shell=True)
Please notice the shell=True argument.
Edit due to comment:
Shell=True is an security issue, if you're passing raw input values to the call. See this example from the docs:
from subprocess import call
filename = input("What file would you like to display?\n")
>>> What file would you like to display?
>>> non_existent; rm -rf / #
call("cat " + filename, shell=True) # Uh-oh. This will end badly...
In initially thought you want to make a small script for personal purposes. If you want to give this code away, think about packaging your code via distutils or setuptools.

Open new gnome-terminal and run command

I'm trying to write a script that opens a new terminal then runs a separate python script from that terminal.
I've tried:
os.system("gnome-terminal 'python f.py'")
and
p = Popen("/usr/bin/gnome-terminal", stdin=PIPE)
p.communicate("python f.py")
but both methods only open a new terminal and do not run f.py. How would I go about opening the terminal AND running a separate script?
Edit:
I would like to open a new terminal window because f.py is a simply server that is running serve_forever(). I'd like the original terminal window to stay "free" to run other commands.

Like most terminals, gnome terminal needs options to execute commands:
gnome-terminal [-e, --command=STRING] [-x, --execute]
You probably need to add -x option:
x, --execute
Execute the remainder of the command line inside the terminal.
so:
os.system("gnome-terminal -x python f.py")
That would not run your process in the background unless you add & to your command line BTW.
The communicate attempt would need a newline for your input but should work too, but complex processes like terminals don't "like" being redirected. It seems like using an interactive tool backwards.
And again, that would block until termination. What could work would be to use p.stdin.write("python f.py\n") to give control to the python script. But in that case it's unlikely to work.
So it seems that you don't even need python do to what you want. You just need to run
python f.py &
in a shell.

As of GNOME Terminal 3.24.2 Using VTE version 0.48.4 +GNUTLS -PCRE2
Option “-x” is deprecated and might be removed in a later version of gnome-terminal.
Use “-- ” to terminate the options and put the command line to execute after it.
Thus the preferred syntax appears to be
gnome-terminal -- echo hello
rather than
gnome-terminal -x echo hello

Here is a complete example of how you would call a executable python file with subprocess.call Using argparse to properly parse the input.
the target process will print your given input.
Your python file to be called:
import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("--file", help="Just A test", dest='myfile')
args = parser.parse_args()
print args.myfile
Your calling python file:
from subprocess import call
#call(["python","/users/dev/python/sandboxArgParse.py", "--file", "abcd.txt"])
call(["gnome-terminal", "-e", "python /users/dev/python/sandboxArgParse.py --file abcd.txt"])
Just for information:
You probably don't need python calling another python script to run a terminal window with a process, but could do as follows:
gnome-terminal -e "python /yourfile.py -f yourTestfile.txt"

The following code will open a new terminal and execute the process:
process = subprocess.Popen(
"sudo gnome-terminal -x python f.py",
stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
stderr=None,
shell=True
)

I am running a uWS server with this.In my case Popen didn't help(Even though it run the executable, still it couldn't communicate with a client -: socket connection is broken).This is working.Also now they recommends to use "--" instead of "-e".
subprocess.call(['gnome-terminal', "--", "python3", "server_deployment.py"])
#server_deployment.py
def run():
execution_cmd = "./my_executable arg1 arg2 dll_1 dll_2"
os.system(execution_cmd)
run()

Python -- execution shell commands using a designated shells

so I know python can execute shell commands using subprocess.call()
But I normally use tcsh, and I have a .tcshrc that loads a lot of environmental variables to make my shell comfortable.
How do I make my subprocess.call() realize that -- execute my commands in tcsh, load my .tcshrc file?

Explicitly invoke tcsh to execute the respective cmds, like this (replace env with your specific cmd arg list:
~/> cat tst.py
#!/usr/bin/python -u
import subprocess
subprocess.call(['/usr/bin/tcsh', '-c', 'env'])
~/> ./tst.py | grep ^DISPLAY
DISPLAY=:0
~/>