Develop Reference

Detect if specific Python.app instance is already running

I am experimenting with OS X apps written in Python and need to detect if there is already an instance of Python.app running with certain script. The script modifies CFBundleName on-the-fly from Python to MyApp to change the app title in the menubar.
bundle = NSBundle.mainBundle()
info = bundle.localizedInfoDictionary() or bundle.infoDictionary()
info['CFBundleName'] = 'MyApp'
If I start another instance and check CFBundleName of the running apps, it will only tell me the original value, i.e. Python:
for app in NSWorkspace.sharedWorkspace().runningApplications():
bundle = NSBundle.bundleWithURL_(app.bundleURL())
info = bundle.localizedInfoDictionary() or bundle.infoDictionary()
name = info.get('CFBundleName')
if name in ('Python', 'MyApp'):
print name # => prints Python
So I need to find a way to mark a Python.app instance that runs MyApp script to be able to abort launching duplicate instances.
Is there such way?
Update:
Until there is a better solution, I'll be using lockf
import fcntl
lockfile = open('/tmp/myapp.lock', 'w')
fcntl.lockf(lockfile, fcntl.LOCK_EX | fcntl.LOCK_NB)
Update 2:
Well, I still need to find my application to focus. Currently, I just loop through all Python.app instances and focus them one by one. Normally, there is just one, but if there are few of them it can be messy.
from Foundation import NSWorkspace
from Cocoa import NSApplicationActivateAllWindows, NSApplicationActivateIgnoringOtherApps
try:
import fcntl
lockfile = open('/tmp/myapp.lock', 'w')
fcntl.lockf(lockfile, fcntl.LOCK_EX | fcntl.LOCK_NB)
except IOError as e:
assert (e.errno, e.strerror) == (35, 'Resource temporarily unavailable')
for app in NSWorkspace.sharedWorkspace().runningApplications():
if app.bundleIdentifier() == 'org.python.python':
app.activateWithOptions_(NSApplicationActivateAllWindows | NSApplicationActivateIgnoringOtherApps)
exit()
Update 3:
I am going to use a pid file until a better solution comes up
LOCK_FILE = '/tmp/myapp.lock'
PID_FILE = '/tmp/myapp.pid'
try:
import fcntl
# NOTE: needs to be assigned to a variable for the lock to be preserved
lockfile = open(LOCK_FILE, 'w')
fcntl.lockf(lockfile, fcntl.LOCK_EX | fcntl.LOCK_NB)
except IOError as e:
try:
with open(PID_FILE) as f:
pid = int(f.read())
except:
pid = None
for app in NSWorkspace.sharedWorkspace().runningApplications():
if app.bundleIdentifier() == 'org.python.python':
if not pid or pid == app.processIdentifier():
app.activateWithOptions_(NSApplicationActivateAllWindows | NSApplicationActivateIgnoringOtherApps)
exit()
from Foundation import NSProcessInfo
info = NSProcessInfo.processInfo()
pid = info.processIdentifier()
with open(PID_FILE, 'w+') as f:
f.write(str(pid))

There are several ways to solve this. Among them:
libunique - a library specifically designed for this
dbus - internal communications system
Many of them are described in the answers of this post.
A recipe for unique instances is given here.

A less subtle solution would be to call killall with the name of your application without .app from the command line. This can be done from within you Python script using os.command().

How to check whether screen is off in Mac/Python?

How do I check whether the screen is off due to the Energy Saver settings in System Preferences under Mac/Python?

Quick and dirty solution: call ioreg and parse the output.
import subprocess
import re
POWER_MGMT_RE = re.compile(r'IOPowerManagement.*{(.*)}')
def display_status():
output = subprocess.check_output(
'ioreg -w 0 -c IODisplayWrangler -r IODisplayWrangler'.split())
status = POWER_MGMT_RE.search(output).group(1)
return dict((k[1:-1], v) for (k, v) in (x.split('=') for x in
status.split(',')))
In my computer, the value for CurrentPowerState is 4 when the screen is on and 1 when the screen is off.
Better solution: use ctypes to get that information directly from IOKit.

The only way i can think off is by using OSX pmset Power Management CML Tool
DESCRIPTION
pmset changes and reads power management settings such as idle sleep timing, wake on administrative
access, automatic restart on power loss, etc.
Refer to the following link, it will provide a great deal of information that should aid you in accomplishing exactly what you are looking for.
http://managingamac.blogspot.com/2012/12/power-assertions-in-python.html
I will include the code provided by the link for "saving and documentation" purposes:
#!/usr/bin/python
import ctypes
import CoreFoundation
import objc
import subprocess
import time
def SetUpIOFramework():
# load the IOKit library
framework = ctypes.cdll.LoadLibrary(
'/System/Library/Frameworks/IOKit.framework/IOKit')
# declare parameters as described in IOPMLib.h
framework.IOPMAssertionCreateWithName.argtypes = [
ctypes.c_void_p, # CFStringRef
ctypes.c_uint32, # IOPMAssertionLevel
ctypes.c_void_p, # CFStringRef
ctypes.POINTER(ctypes.c_uint32)] # IOPMAssertionID
framework.IOPMAssertionRelease.argtypes = [
ctypes.c_uint32] # IOPMAssertionID
return framework
def StringToCFString(string):
# we'll need to convert our strings before use
return objc.pyobjc_id(
CoreFoundation.CFStringCreateWithCString(
None, string,
CoreFoundation.kCFStringEncodingASCII).nsstring())
def AssertionCreateWithName(framework, a_type,
a_level, a_reason):
# this method will create an assertion using the IOKit library
# several parameters
a_id = ctypes.c_uint32(0)
a_type = StringToCFString(a_type)
a_reason = StringToCFString(a_reason)
a_error = framework.IOPMAssertionCreateWithName(
a_type, a_level, a_reason, ctypes.byref(a_id))
# we get back a 0 or stderr, along with a unique c_uint
# representing the assertion ID so we can release it later
return a_error, a_id
def AssertionRelease(framework, assertion_id):
# releasing the assertion is easy, and also returns a 0 on
# success, or stderr otherwise
return framework.IOPMAssertionRelease(assertion_id)
def main():
# let's create a no idle assertion for 30 seconds
no_idle = 'NoIdleSleepAssertion'
reason = 'Test of Pythonic power assertions'
# first, we'll need the IOKit framework
framework = SetUpIOFramework()
# next, create the assertion and save the ID!
ret, a_id = AssertionCreateWithName(framework, no_idle, 255, reason)
print '\n\nCreating power assertion: status %s, id %s\n\n' % (ret, a_id)
# subprocess a call to pmset to verify the assertion worked
subprocess.call(['pmset', '-g', 'assertions'])
time.sleep(5)
# finally, release the assertion of the ID we saved earlier
AssertionRelease(framework, a_id)
print '\n\nReleasing power assertion: id %s\n\n' % a_id
# verify the assertion has been removed
subprocess.call(['pmset', '-g', 'assertions'])
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
https://opensource.apple.com/source/PowerManagement/PowerManagement-211/pmset/pmset.c
The code relies on IOPMLib, which functions to make assertions, schedule power events, measure thermals, and more.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/iokit/iopmlib_h
To call these functions through Python, we must go through the IOKit Framework.
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/DeviceDrivers/Conceptual/IOKitFundamentals/Introduction/Introduction.html
In order for us to manipulate C data types in Python, we'll use a foreign function interface called ctypes.
http://python.net/crew/theller/ctypes/
Here's the wrapper the author describe's on the page; written by Michael Lynn. The code i posted from the Author's link above is a rewrite of this code to make it more understandable.
https://github.com/pudquick/pypmset/blob/master/pypmset.py

python - Monitor if file is being requested/read from external application [duplicate]

I have a log file being written by another process which I want to watch for changes. Each time a change occurs I'd like to read the new data in to do some processing on it.
What's the best way to do this? I was hoping there'd be some sort of hook from the PyWin32 library. I've found the win32file.FindNextChangeNotification function but have no idea how to ask it to watch a specific file.
If anyone's done anything like this I'd be really grateful to hear how...
[Edit] I should have mentioned that I was after a solution that doesn't require polling.
[Edit] Curses! It seems this doesn't work over a mapped network drive. I'm guessing windows doesn't 'hear' any updates to the file the way it does on a local disk.

Did you try using Watchdog?
Python API library and shell utilities to monitor file system events.
Directory monitoring made easy with
A cross-platform API.
A shell tool to run commands in response to directory changes.
Get started quickly with a simple example in Quickstart...

If polling is good enough for you, I'd just watch if the "modified time" file stat changes. To read it:
os.stat(filename).st_mtime
(Also note that the Windows native change event solution does not work in all circumstances, e.g. on network drives.)
import os
class Monkey(object):
def __init__(self):
self._cached_stamp = 0
self.filename = '/path/to/file'
def ook(self):
stamp = os.stat(self.filename).st_mtime
if stamp != self._cached_stamp:
self._cached_stamp = stamp
# File has changed, so do something...

If you want a multiplatform solution, then check QFileSystemWatcher.
Here an example code (not sanitized):
from PyQt4 import QtCore
#QtCore.pyqtSlot(str)
def directory_changed(path):
print('Directory Changed!!!')
#QtCore.pyqtSlot(str)
def file_changed(path):
print('File Changed!!!')
fs_watcher = QtCore.QFileSystemWatcher(['/path/to/files_1', '/path/to/files_2', '/path/to/files_3'])
fs_watcher.connect(fs_watcher, QtCore.SIGNAL('directoryChanged(QString)'), directory_changed)
fs_watcher.connect(fs_watcher, QtCore.SIGNAL('fileChanged(QString)'), file_changed)

It should not work on windows (maybe with cygwin ?), but for unix user, you should use the "fcntl" system call. Here is an example in Python. It's mostly the same code if you need to write it in C (same function names)
import time
import fcntl
import os
import signal
FNAME = "/HOME/TOTO/FILETOWATCH"
def handler(signum, frame):
print "File %s modified" % (FNAME,)
signal.signal(signal.SIGIO, handler)
fd = os.open(FNAME, os.O_RDONLY)
fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_SETSIG, 0)
fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_NOTIFY,
fcntl.DN_MODIFY | fcntl.DN_CREATE | fcntl.DN_MULTISHOT)
while True:
time.sleep(10000)

Check out pyinotify.
inotify replaces dnotify (from an earlier answer) in newer linuxes and allows file-level rather than directory-level monitoring.

For watching a single file with polling, and minimal dependencies, here is a fully fleshed-out example, based on answer from Deestan (above):
import os
import sys
import time
class Watcher(object):
running = True
refresh_delay_secs = 1
# Constructor
def __init__(self, watch_file, call_func_on_change=None, *args, **kwargs):
self._cached_stamp = 0
self.filename = watch_file
self.call_func_on_change = call_func_on_change
self.args = args
self.kwargs = kwargs
# Look for changes
def look(self):
stamp = os.stat(self.filename).st_mtime
if stamp != self._cached_stamp:
self._cached_stamp = stamp
# File has changed, so do something...
print('File changed')
if self.call_func_on_change is not None:
self.call_func_on_change(*self.args, **self.kwargs)
# Keep watching in a loop
def watch(self):
while self.running:
try:
# Look for changes
time.sleep(self.refresh_delay_secs)
self.look()
except KeyboardInterrupt:
print('\nDone')
break
except FileNotFoundError:
# Action on file not found
pass
except:
print('Unhandled error: %s' % sys.exc_info()[0])
# Call this function each time a change happens
def custom_action(text):
print(text)
watch_file = 'my_file.txt'
# watcher = Watcher(watch_file) # simple
watcher = Watcher(watch_file, custom_action, text='yes, changed') # also call custom action function
watcher.watch() # start the watch going

Well after a bit of hacking of Tim Golden's script, I have the following which seems to work quite well:
import os
import win32file
import win32con
path_to_watch = "." # look at the current directory
file_to_watch = "test.txt" # look for changes to a file called test.txt
def ProcessNewData( newData ):
print "Text added: %s"%newData
# Set up the bits we'll need for output
ACTIONS = {
1 : "Created",
2 : "Deleted",
3 : "Updated",
4 : "Renamed from something",
5 : "Renamed to something"
}
FILE_LIST_DIRECTORY = 0x0001
hDir = win32file.CreateFile (
path_to_watch,
FILE_LIST_DIRECTORY,
win32con.FILE_SHARE_READ | win32con.FILE_SHARE_WRITE,
None,
win32con.OPEN_EXISTING,
win32con.FILE_FLAG_BACKUP_SEMANTICS,
None
)
# Open the file we're interested in
a = open(file_to_watch, "r")
# Throw away any exising log data
a.read()
# Wait for new data and call ProcessNewData for each new chunk that's written
while 1:
# Wait for a change to occur
results = win32file.ReadDirectoryChangesW (
hDir,
1024,
False,
win32con.FILE_NOTIFY_CHANGE_LAST_WRITE,
None,
None
)
# For each change, check to see if it's updating the file we're interested in
for action, file in results:
full_filename = os.path.join (path_to_watch, file)
#print file, ACTIONS.get (action, "Unknown")
if file == file_to_watch:
newText = a.read()
if newText != "":
ProcessNewData( newText )
It could probably do with a load more error checking, but for simply watching a log file and doing some processing on it before spitting it out to the screen, this works well.
Thanks everyone for your input - great stuff!

Check my answer to a similar question. You could try the same loop in Python. This page suggests:
import time
while 1:
where = file.tell()
line = file.readline()
if not line:
time.sleep(1)
file.seek(where)
else:
print line, # already has newline
Also see the question tail() a file with Python.

This is another modification of Tim Goldan's script that runs on unix types and adds a simple watcher for file modification by using a dict (file=>time).
usage: whateverName.py path_to_dir_to_watch
#!/usr/bin/env python
import os, sys, time
def files_to_timestamp(path):
files = [os.path.join(path, f) for f in os.listdir(path)]
return dict ([(f, os.path.getmtime(f)) for f in files])
if __name__ == "__main__":
path_to_watch = sys.argv[1]
print('Watching {}..'.format(path_to_watch))
before = files_to_timestamp(path_to_watch)
while 1:
time.sleep (2)
after = files_to_timestamp(path_to_watch)
added = [f for f in after.keys() if not f in before.keys()]
removed = [f for f in before.keys() if not f in after.keys()]
modified = []
for f in before.keys():
if not f in removed:
if os.path.getmtime(f) != before.get(f):
modified.append(f)
if added: print('Added: {}'.format(', '.join(added)))
if removed: print('Removed: {}'.format(', '.join(removed)))
if modified: print('Modified: {}'.format(', '.join(modified)))
before = after

Here is a simplified version of Kender's code that appears to do the same trick and does not import the entire file:
# Check file for new data.
import time
f = open(r'c:\temp\test.txt', 'r')
while True:
line = f.readline()
if not line:
time.sleep(1)
print 'Nothing New'
else:
print 'Call Function: ', line

Well, since you are using Python, you can just open a file and keep reading lines from it.
f = open('file.log')
If the line read is not empty, you process it.
line = f.readline()
if line:
// Do what you want with the line
You may be missing that it is ok to keep calling readline at the EOF. It will just keep returning an empty string in this case. And when something is appended to the log file, the reading will continue from where it stopped, as you need.
If you are looking for a solution that uses events, or a particular library, please specify this in your question. Otherwise, I think this solution is just fine.

Simplest solution for me is using watchdog's tool watchmedo
From https://pypi.python.org/pypi/watchdog I now have a process that looks up the sql files in a directory and executes them if necessary.
watchmedo shell-command \
--patterns="*.sql" \
--recursive \
--command='~/Desktop/load_files_into_mysql_database.sh' \
.

As you can see in Tim Golden's article, pointed by Horst Gutmann, WIN32 is relatively complex and watches directories, not a single file.
I'd like to suggest you look into IronPython, which is a .NET python implementation.
With IronPython you can use all the .NET functionality - including
System.IO.FileSystemWatcher
Which handles single files with a simple Event interface.

This is an example of checking a file for changes. One that may not be the best way of doing it, but it sure is a short way.
Handy tool for restarting application when changes have been made to the source. I made this when playing with pygame so I can see effects take place immediately after file save.
When used in pygame make sure the stuff in the 'while' loop is placed in your game loop aka update or whatever. Otherwise your application will get stuck in an infinite loop and you will not see your game updating.
file_size_stored = os.stat('neuron.py').st_size
while True:
try:
file_size_current = os.stat('neuron.py').st_size
if file_size_stored != file_size_current:
restart_program()
except:
pass
In case you wanted the restart code which I found on the web. Here it is. (Not relevant to the question, though it could come in handy)
def restart_program(): #restart application
python = sys.executable
os.execl(python, python, * sys.argv)
Have fun making electrons do what you want them to do.

Seems that no one has posted fswatch. It is a cross-platform file system watcher. Just install it, run it and follow the prompts.
I've used it with python and golang programs and it just works.

ACTIONS = {
1 : "Created",
2 : "Deleted",
3 : "Updated",
4 : "Renamed from something",
5 : "Renamed to something"
}
FILE_LIST_DIRECTORY = 0x0001
class myThread (threading.Thread):
def __init__(self, threadID, fileName, directory, origin):
threading.Thread.__init__(self)
self.threadID = threadID
self.fileName = fileName
self.daemon = True
self.dir = directory
self.originalFile = origin
def run(self):
startMonitor(self.fileName, self.dir, self.originalFile)
def startMonitor(fileMonitoring,dirPath,originalFile):
hDir = win32file.CreateFile (
dirPath,
FILE_LIST_DIRECTORY,
win32con.FILE_SHARE_READ | win32con.FILE_SHARE_WRITE,
None,
win32con.OPEN_EXISTING,
win32con.FILE_FLAG_BACKUP_SEMANTICS,
None
)
# Wait for new data and call ProcessNewData for each new chunk that's
# written
while 1:
# Wait for a change to occur
results = win32file.ReadDirectoryChangesW (
hDir,
1024,
False,
win32con.FILE_NOTIFY_CHANGE_LAST_WRITE,
None,
None
)
# For each change, check to see if it's updating the file we're
# interested in
for action, file_M in results:
full_filename = os.path.join (dirPath, file_M)
#print file, ACTIONS.get (action, "Unknown")
if len(full_filename) == len(fileMonitoring) and action == 3:
#copy to main file
...

Since I have it installed globally, my favorite approach is to use nodemon. If your source code is in src, and your entry point is src/app.py, then it's as easy as:
nodemon -w 'src/**' -e py,html --exec python src/app.py
... where -e py,html lets you control what file types to watch for changes.

Here's an example geared toward watching input files that write no more than one line per second but usually a lot less. The goal is to append the last line (most recent write) to the specified output file. I've copied this from one of my projects and just deleted all the irrelevant lines. You'll have to fill in or change the missing symbols.
from PyQt5.QtCore import QFileSystemWatcher, QSettings, QThread
from ui_main_window import Ui_MainWindow # Qt Creator gen'd
class MainWindow(QMainWindow, Ui_MainWindow):
def __init__(self, parent=None):
QMainWindow.__init__(self, parent)
Ui_MainWindow.__init__(self)
self._fileWatcher = QFileSystemWatcher()
self._fileWatcher.fileChanged.connect(self.fileChanged)
def fileChanged(self, filepath):
QThread.msleep(300) # Reqd on some machines, give chance for write to complete
# ^^ About to test this, may need more sophisticated solution
with open(filepath) as file:
lastLine = list(file)[-1]
destPath = self._filemap[filepath]['dest file']
with open(destPath, 'a') as out_file: # a= append
out_file.writelines([lastLine])
Of course, the encompassing QMainWindow class is not strictly required, ie. you can use QFileSystemWatcher alone.

Just to put this out there since no one mentioned it: there's a Python module in the Standard Library named filecmp which has this cmp() function that compares two files.
Just make sure you don't do from filecmp import cmp to not overshadow the built-in cmp() function in Python 2.x. That's okay in Python 3.x, though, since there's no such built-in cmp() function anymore.
Anyway, this is how its use looks like:
import filecmp
filecmp.cmp(path_to_file_1, path_to_file_2, shallow=True)
The argument shallow defaults to True. If the argument's value is True, then only the metadata of the files are compared; however, if the argument's value is False, then the contents of the files are compared.
Maybe this information will be useful to someone.

watchfiles (https://github.com/samuelcolvin/watchfiles) is a Python API and CLI that uses the Notify (https://github.com/notify-rs/notify) library written in Rust.
The rust implementation currently (2022-10-09) supports:
Linux / Android: inotify
macOS: FSEvents or kqueue, see features
Windows: ReadDirectoryChangesW
FreeBSD / NetBSD / OpenBSD / DragonflyBSD: kqueue
All platforms: polling
Binaries available on PyPI (https://pypi.org/project/watchfiles/) and conda-forge (https://github.com/conda-forge/watchfiles-feedstock).

You can also use a simple library called repyt, here is an example:
repyt ./app.py

related #4Oh4 solution a smooth change for a list of files to watch;
import os
import sys
import time
class Watcher(object):
running = True
refresh_delay_secs = 1
# Constructor
def __init__(self, watch_files, call_func_on_change=None, *args, **kwargs):
self._cached_stamp = 0
self._cached_stamp_files = {}
self.filenames = watch_files
self.call_func_on_change = call_func_on_change
self.args = args
self.kwargs = kwargs
# Look for changes
def look(self):
for file in self.filenames:
stamp = os.stat(file).st_mtime
if not file in self._cached_stamp_files:
self._cached_stamp_files[file] = 0
if stamp != self._cached_stamp_files[file]:
self._cached_stamp_files[file] = stamp
# File has changed, so do something...
file_to_read = open(file, 'r')
value = file_to_read.read()
print("value from file", value)
file_to_read.seek(0)
if self.call_func_on_change is not None:
self.call_func_on_change(*self.args, **self.kwargs)
# Keep watching in a loop
def watch(self):
while self.running:
try:
# Look for changes
time.sleep(self.refresh_delay_secs)
self.look()
except KeyboardInterrupt:
print('\nDone')
break
except FileNotFoundError:
# Action on file not found
pass
except Exception as e:
print(e)
print('Unhandled error: %s' % sys.exc_info()[0])
# Call this function each time a change happens
def custom_action(text):
print(text)
# pass
watch_files = ['/Users/mexekanez/my_file.txt', '/Users/mexekanez/my_file1.txt']
# watcher = Watcher(watch_file) # simple
if __name__ == "__main__":
watcher = Watcher(watch_files, custom_action, text='yes, changed') # also call custom action function
watcher.watch() # start the watch going

The best and simplest solution is to use pygtail:
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pygtail
from pygtail import Pygtail
import sys
while True:
for line in Pygtail("some.log"):
sys.stdout.write(line)

import inotify.adapters
from datetime import datetime
LOG_FILE='/var/log/mysql/server_audit.log'
def main():
start_time = datetime.now()
while True:
i = inotify.adapters.Inotify()
i.add_watch(LOG_FILE)
for event in i.event_gen(yield_nones=False):
break
del i
with open(LOG_FILE, 'r') as f:
for line in f:
entry = line.split(',')
entry_time = datetime.strptime(entry[0],
'%Y%m%d %H:%M:%S')
if entry_time > start_time:
start_time = entry_time
print(entry)
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()

The easiest solution would get the two instances of the same file after an interval and Compare them. You Could try something like this
while True:
# Capturing the two instances models.py after certain interval of time
print("Looking for changes in " + app_name.capitalize() + " models.py\nPress 'CTRL + C' to stop the program")
with open(app_name.capitalize() + '/filename', 'r+') as app_models_file:
filename_content = app_models_file.read()
time.sleep(5)
with open(app_name.capitalize() + '/filename', 'r+') as app_models_file_1:
filename_content_1 = app_models_file_1.read()
# Comparing models.py after certain interval of time
if filename_content == filename_content_1:
pass
else:
print("You made a change in " + app_name.capitalize() + " filename.\n")
cmd = str(input("Do something with the file?(y/n):"))
if cmd == 'y':
# Do Something
elif cmd == 'n':
# pass or do something
else:
print("Invalid input")

If you're using windows, create this POLL.CMD file
#echo off
:top
xcopy /m /y %1 %2 | find /v "File(s) copied"
timeout /T 1 > nul
goto :top
then you can type "poll dir1 dir2" and it will copy all the files from dir1 to dir2 and check for updates once per second.
The "find" is optional, just to make the console less noisy.
This is not recursive. Maybe you could make it recursive using /e on the xcopy.

I don't know any Windows specific function. You could try getting the MD5 hash of the file every second/minute/hour (depends on how fast you need it) and compare it to the last hash. When it differs you know the file has been changed and you read out the newest lines.

I'd try something like this.
try:
f = open(filePath)
except IOError:
print "No such file: %s" % filePath
raw_input("Press Enter to close window")
try:
lines = f.readlines()
while True:
line = f.readline()
try:
if not line:
time.sleep(1)
else:
functionThatAnalisesTheLine(line)
except Exception, e:
# handle the exception somehow (for example, log the trace) and raise the same exception again
raw_input("Press Enter to close window")
raise e
finally:
f.close()
The loop checks if there is a new line(s) since last time file was read - if there is, it's read and passed to the functionThatAnalisesTheLine function. If not, script waits 1 second and retries the process.

Disabling output when compiling with distutils

I have a setup.py script which needs to probe the compiler for certain things like the support for TR1, the presence of windows.h (to add NOMINMAX define), etc. I do these checks by creating a simple program and trying to compile it with Distutils' Compiler class. The presence/lack of errors is my answer.
This works well, but it means that the compiler's ugly error messages get printed to the console. Is there a way to suppress error messages for when the compile function is called manually?
Here is my function which tries to compile the program, which now DOES eliminate the error messages by piping the error stream to a file (answered my own question):
def see_if_compiles(program, include_dirs, define_macros):
""" Try to compile the passed in program and report if it compiles successfully or not. """
from distutils.ccompiler import new_compiler, CompileError
from shutil import rmtree
import tempfile
import os
try:
tmpdir = tempfile.mkdtemp()
except AttributeError:
# Python 2.2 doesn't have mkdtemp().
tmpdir = "compile_check_tempdir"
try:
os.mkdir(tmpdir)
except OSError:
print "Can't create temporary directory. Aborting."
sys.exit()
old = os.getcwd()
os.chdir(tmpdir)
# Write the program
f = open('compiletest.cpp', 'w')
f.write(program)
f.close()
# redirect the error stream to keep ugly compiler error messages off the command line
devnull = open('errors.txt', 'w')
oldstderr = os.dup(sys.stderr.fileno())
os.dup2(devnull.fileno(), sys.stderr.fileno())
#
try:
c = new_compiler()
for macro in define_macros:
c.define_macro(name=macro[0], value=macro[1])
c.compile([f.name], include_dirs=include_dirs)
success = True
except CompileError:
success = False
# undo the error stream redirect
os.dup2(oldstderr, sys.stderr.fileno())
devnull.close()
os.chdir(old)
rmtree(tmpdir)
return success
Here is a function which uses the above to check for the presence of a header.
def check_for_header(header, include_dirs, define_macros):
"""Check for the existence of a header file by creating a small program which includes it and see if it compiles."""
program = "#include <%s>\n" % header
sys.stdout.write("Checking for <%s>... " % header)
success = see_if_compiles(program, include_dirs, define_macros)
if (success):
sys.stdout.write("OK\n");
else:
sys.stdout.write("Not found\n");
return success

Zac's comment spurred me to look a bit more and I found that Mercurial's setup.py script has a working method for his approach. You can't just assign the stream because the change won't get inherited by the compiler process, but apparently Python has our good friend dup2() in the form of os.dup2(). That allows the same OS-level stream shenanigans that we all know and love, which do get inherited to child processes.
Mercurial's function redirects to /dev/null, but to keep Windows compatibility I just redirect to a file then delete it.
Quoth Mercurial:
# simplified version of distutils.ccompiler.CCompiler.has_function
# that actually removes its temporary files.
def hasfunction(cc, funcname):
tmpdir = tempfile.mkdtemp(prefix='hg-install-')
devnull = oldstderr = None
try:
try:
fname = os.path.join(tmpdir, 'funcname.c')
f = open(fname, 'w')
f.write('int main(void) {\n')
f.write(' %s();\n' % funcname)
f.write('}\n')
f.close()
# Redirect stderr to /dev/null to hide any error messages
# from the compiler.
# This will have to be changed if we ever have to check
# for a function on Windows.
devnull = open('/dev/null', 'w')
oldstderr = os.dup(sys.stderr.fileno())
os.dup2(devnull.fileno(), sys.stderr.fileno())
objects = cc.compile([fname], output_dir=tmpdir)
cc.link_executable(objects, os.path.join(tmpdir, "a.out"))
except:
return False
return True
finally:
if oldstderr is not None:
os.dup2(oldstderr, sys.stderr.fileno())
if devnull is not None:
devnull.close()
shutil.rmtree(tmpdir)

Here's a context manager that I recently wrote and found useful, because I was having the same problem with distutils.ccompiler.CCompiler.has_function while working on pymssql. I was going to use your approach (nice, thanks for sharing!) but then I thought that it could be done with less code and would be more general and flexible if I used a context manager. Here's what I came up with:
import contextlib
#contextlib.contextmanager
def stdchannel_redirected(stdchannel, dest_filename):
"""
A context manager to temporarily redirect stdout or stderr
e.g.:
with stdchannel_redirected(sys.stderr, os.devnull):
if compiler.has_function('clock_gettime', libraries=['rt']):
libraries.append('rt')
"""
try:
oldstdchannel = os.dup(stdchannel.fileno())
dest_file = open(dest_filename, 'w')
os.dup2(dest_file.fileno(), stdchannel.fileno())
yield
finally:
if oldstdchannel is not None:
os.dup2(oldstdchannel, stdchannel.fileno())
if dest_file is not None:
dest_file.close()
The context for why I created this is at this blog post. Pretty much the same as yours I think.
This uses code that I borrowed from you to do the redirection (e.g.: os.dup2, etc.), but I wrapped it in a context manager so it's more general and reusable.
I use it like this in a setup.py:
with stdchannel_redirected(sys.stderr, os.devnull):
if compiler.has_function('clock_gettime', libraries=['rt']):
libraries.append('rt')

#Adam I just want to point out that there is /dev/null equivalent on Windows. It's 'NUL' but good practice is to get it from os.devnull

I'm pretty new to programming and python, so disregard this if it's a stupid suggestion, but can't you just reroute the error messages to a text file instead of the screen/interactive window/whatever?
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere you can do something like
error = open('yourerrorlog.txt','w')
sys.stderr = error
Again, sorry I'm probably repeating something you already know, but if the problem is you WANT the errors when it's called by another function (automated) and no errors when it's ran manual, can't you just add a keyword argument like compile(arg1, arg2, manual=True ) and then under your "except:" you add
if manual == False: print errors to console/interactive window
else: print to error
Then when it's called by the program and not manually you just call it with compile(arg1,arg2, manual=False) so that it redirects to the file.

Does running in quiet mode help at all? setup.py -q build
Not a direct answer to your question, but related to your use case: there is a config command in distutils that’s designed to be subclassed and used to check for C features. It’s not documented yet, you have to read the source.

Make sure only a single instance of a program is running

Is there a Pythonic way to have only one instance of a program running?
The only reasonable solution I've come up with is trying to run it as a server on some port, then second program trying to bind to same port - fails. But it's not really a great idea, maybe there's something more lightweight than this?
(Take into consideration that program is expected to fail sometimes, i.e. segfault - so things like "lock file" won't work)

The following code should do the job, it is cross-platform and runs on Python 2.4-3.2. I tested it on Windows, OS X and Linux.
from tendo import singleton
me = singleton.SingleInstance() # will sys.exit(-1) if other instance is running
The latest code version is available singleton.py. Please file bugs here.
You can install tend using one of the following methods:
easy_install tendo
pip install tendo
manually by getting it from http://pypi.python.org/pypi/tendo

Simple, cross-platform solution, found in another question by zgoda:
import fcntl
import os
import sys
def instance_already_running(label="default"):
"""
Detect if an an instance with the label is already running, globally
at the operating system level.
Using `os.open` ensures that the file pointer won't be closed
by Python's garbage collector after the function's scope is exited.
The lock will be released when the program exits, or could be
released if the file pointer were closed.
"""
lock_file_pointer = os.open(f"/tmp/instance_{label}.lock", os.O_WRONLY)
try:
fcntl.lockf(lock_file_pointer, fcntl.LOCK_EX | fcntl.LOCK_NB)
already_running = False
except IOError:
already_running = True
return already_running
A lot like S.Lott's suggestion, but with the code.

This code is Linux specific. It uses 'abstract' UNIX domain sockets, but it is simple and won't leave stale lock files around. I prefer it to the solution above because it doesn't require a specially reserved TCP port.
try:
import socket
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_UNIX, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
## Create an abstract socket, by prefixing it with null.
s.bind( '\0postconnect_gateway_notify_lock')
except socket.error as e:
error_code = e.args[0]
error_string = e.args[1]
print "Process already running (%d:%s ). Exiting" % ( error_code, error_string)
sys.exit (0)
The unique string postconnect_gateway_notify_lock can be changed to allow multiple programs that need a single instance enforced.

I don't know if it's pythonic enough, but in the Java world listening on a defined port is a pretty widely used solution, as it works on all major platforms and doesn't have any problems with crashing programs.
Another advantage of listening to a port is that you could send a command to the running instance. For example when the users starts the program a second time, you could send the running instance a command to tell it to open another window (that's what Firefox does, for example. I don't know if they use TCP ports or named pipes or something like that, 'though).

Never written python before, but this is what I've just implemented in mycheckpoint, to prevent it being started twice or more by crond:
import os
import sys
import fcntl
fh=0
def run_once():
global fh
fh=open(os.path.realpath(__file__),'r')
try:
fcntl.flock(fh,fcntl.LOCK_EX|fcntl.LOCK_NB)
except:
os._exit(0)
run_once()
Found Slava-N's suggestion after posting this in another issue (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2959474). This one is called as a function, locks the executing scripts file (not a pid file) and maintains the lock until the script ends (normal or error).

Use a pid file. You have some known location, "/path/to/pidfile" and at startup you do something like this (partially pseudocode because I'm pre-coffee and don't want to work all that hard):
import os, os.path
pidfilePath = """/path/to/pidfile"""
if os.path.exists(pidfilePath):
pidfile = open(pidfilePath,"r")
pidString = pidfile.read()
if <pidString is equal to os.getpid()>:
# something is real weird
Sys.exit(BADCODE)
else:
<use ps or pidof to see if the process with pid pidString is still running>
if <process with pid == 'pidString' is still running>:
Sys.exit(ALREADAYRUNNING)
else:
# the previous server must have crashed
<log server had crashed>
<reopen pidfilePath for writing>
pidfile.write(os.getpid())
else:
<open pidfilePath for writing>
pidfile.write(os.getpid())
So, in other words, you're checking if a pidfile exists; if not, write your pid to that file. If the pidfile does exist, then check to see if the pid is the pid of a running process; if so, then you've got another live process running, so just shut down. If not, then the previous process crashed, so log it, and then write your own pid to the file in place of the old one. Then continue.

The best solution for this on windows is to use mutexes as suggested by #zgoda.
import win32event
import win32api
from winerror import ERROR_ALREADY_EXISTS
mutex = win32event.CreateMutex(None, False, 'name')
last_error = win32api.GetLastError()
if last_error == ERROR_ALREADY_EXISTS:
print("App instance already running")
Some answers use fctnl (included also in #sorin tendo package) which is not available on windows and should you try to freeze your python app using a package like pyinstaller which does static imports, it throws an error.
Also, using the lock file method, creates a read-only problem with database files( experienced this with sqlite3).

Here is my eventual Windows-only solution. Put the following into a module, perhaps called 'onlyone.py', or whatever. Include that module directly into your __ main __ python script file.
import win32event, win32api, winerror, time, sys, os
main_path = os.path.abspath(sys.modules['__main__'].__file__).replace("\\", "/")
first = True
while True:
mutex = win32event.CreateMutex(None, False, main_path + "_{<paste YOUR GUID HERE>}")
if win32api.GetLastError() == 0:
break
win32api.CloseHandle(mutex)
if first:
print "Another instance of %s running, please wait for completion" % main_path
first = False
time.sleep(1)
Explanation
The code attempts to create a mutex with name derived from the full path to the script. We use forward-slashes to avoid potential confusion with the real file system.
Advantages
No configuration or 'magic' identifiers needed, use it in as many different scripts as needed.
No stale files left around, the mutex dies with you.
Prints a helpful message when waiting

This may work.
Attempt create a PID file to a known location. If you fail, someone has the file locked, you're done.
When you finish normally, close and remove the PID file, so someone else can overwrite it.
You can wrap your program in a shell script that removes the PID file even if your program crashes.
You can, also, use the PID file to kill the program if it hangs.

For anybody using wxPython for their application, you can use the function wx.SingleInstanceChecker documented here.
I personally use a subclass of wx.App which makes use of wx.SingleInstanceChecker and returns False from OnInit() if there is an existing instance of the app already executing like so:
import wx
class SingleApp(wx.App):
"""
class that extends wx.App and only permits a single running instance.
"""
def OnInit(self):
"""
wx.App init function that returns False if the app is already running.
"""
self.name = "SingleApp-%s".format(wx.GetUserId())
self.instance = wx.SingleInstanceChecker(self.name)
if self.instance.IsAnotherRunning():
wx.MessageBox(
"An instance of the application is already running",
"Error",
wx.OK | wx.ICON_WARNING
)
return False
return True
This is a simple drop-in replacement for wx.App that prohibits multiple instances. To use it simply replace wx.App with SingleApp in your code like so:
app = SingleApp(redirect=False)
frame = wx.Frame(None, wx.ID_ANY, "Hello World")
frame.Show(True)
app.MainLoop()

Using a lock-file is a quite common approach on unix. If it crashes, you have to clean up manually. You could stor the PID in the file, and on startup check if there is a process with this PID, overriding the lock-file if not. (However, you also need a lock around the read-file-check-pid-rewrite-file). You will find what you need for getting and checking pid in the os-package. The common way of checking if there exists a process with a given pid, is to send it a non-fatal signal.
Other alternatives could be combining this with flock or posix semaphores.
Opening a network socket, as saua proposed, would probably be the easiest and most portable.

I'm posting this as an answer because I'm a new user and Stack Overflow won't let me vote yet.
Sorin Sbarnea's solution works for me under OS X, Linux and Windows, and I am grateful for it.
However, tempfile.gettempdir() behaves one way under OS X and Windows and another under other some/many/all(?) *nixes (ignoring the fact that OS X is also Unix!). The difference is important to this code.
OS X and Windows have user-specific temp directories, so a tempfile created by one user isn't visible to another user. By contrast, under many versions of *nix (I tested Ubuntu 9, RHEL 5, OpenSolaris 2008 and FreeBSD 8), the temp dir is /tmp for all users.
That means that when the lockfile is created on a multi-user machine, it's created in /tmp and only the user who creates the lockfile the first time will be able to run the application.
A possible solution is to embed the current username in the name of the lock file.
It's worth noting that the OP's solution of grabbing a port will also misbehave on a multi-user machine.

Building upon Roberto Rosario's answer, I come up with the following function:
SOCKET = None
def run_single_instance(uniq_name):
try:
import socket
global SOCKET
SOCKET = socket.socket(socket.AF_UNIX, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
## Create an abstract socket, by prefixing it with null.
# this relies on a feature only in linux, when current process quits, the
# socket will be deleted.
SOCKET.bind('\0' + uniq_name)
return True
except socket.error as e:
return False
We need to define global SOCKET vaiable since it will only be garbage collected when the whole process quits. If we declare a local variable in the function, it will go out of scope after the function exits, thus the socket be deleted.
All the credit should go to Roberto Rosario, since I only clarify and elaborate upon his code. And this code will work only on Linux, as the following quoted text from https://troydhanson.github.io/network/Unix_domain_sockets.html explains:
Linux has a special feature: if the pathname for a UNIX domain socket
begins with a null byte \0, its name is not mapped into the
filesystem. Thus it won’t collide with other names in the filesystem.
Also, when a server closes its UNIX domain listening socket in the
abstract namespace, its file is deleted; with regular UNIX domain
sockets, the file persists after the server closes it.

Late answer, but for windows you can use:
from win32event import CreateMutex
from win32api import CloseHandle, GetLastError
from winerror import ERROR_ALREADY_EXISTS
import sys
class singleinstance:
""" Limits application to single instance """
def __init__(self):
self.mutexname = "testmutex_{D0E858DF-985E-4907-B7FB-8D732C3FC3B9}"
self.mutex = CreateMutex(None, False, self.mutexname)
self.lasterror = GetLastError()
def alreadyrunning(self):
return (self.lasterror == ERROR_ALREADY_EXISTS)
def __del__(self):
if self.mutex:
CloseHandle(self.mutex)
Usage
# do this at beginnig of your application
myapp = singleinstance()
# check is another instance of same program running
if myapp.alreadyrunning():
print ("Another instance of this program is already running")
sys.exit(1)

Here is a cross platform example that I've tested on Windows Server 2016 and Ubuntu 20.04 using Python 3.7.9:
import os
class SingleInstanceChecker:
def __init__(self, id):
if isWin():
ensure_win32api()
self.mutexname = id
self.lock = win32event.CreateMutex(None, False, self.mutexname)
self.running = (win32api.GetLastError() == winerror.ERROR_ALREADY_EXISTS)
else:
ensure_fcntl()
self.lock = open(f"/tmp/isnstance_{id}.lock", 'wb')
try:
fcntl.lockf(self.lock, fcntl.LOCK_EX | fcntl.LOCK_NB)
self.running = False
except IOError:
self.running = True
def already_running(self):
return self.running
def __del__(self):
if self.lock:
try:
if isWin():
win32api.CloseHandle(self.lock)
else:
os.close(self.lock)
except Exception as ex:
pass
# ---------------------------------------
# Utility Functions
# Dynamically load win32api on demand
# Install with: pip install pywin32
win32api=winerror=win32event=None
def ensure_win32api():
global win32api,winerror,win32event
if win32api is None:
import win32api
import winerror
import win32event
# Dynamically load fcntl on demand
# Install with: pip install fcntl
fcntl=None
def ensure_fcntl():
global fcntl
if fcntl is None:
import fcntl
def isWin():
return (os.name == 'nt')
# ---------------------------------------
Here is it in use:
import time, sys
def main(argv):
_timeout = 10
print("main() called. sleeping for %s seconds" % _timeout)
time.sleep(_timeout)
print("DONE")
if __name__ == '__main__':
SCR_NAME = "my_script"
sic = SingleInstanceChecker(SCR_NAME)
if sic.already_running():
print("An instance of {} is already running.".format(SCR_NAME))
sys.exit(1)
else:
main(sys.argv[1:])

I use single_process on my gentoo;
pip install single_process
example:
from single_process import single_process
#single_process
def main():
print 1
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
refer: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/single_process/

I keep suspecting there ought to be a good POSIXy solution using process groups, without having to hit the file system, but I can't quite nail it down. Something like:
On startup, your process sends a 'kill -0' to all processes in a particular group. If any such processes exist, it exits. Then it joins the group. No other processes use that group.
However, this has a race condition - multiple processes could all do this at precisely the same time and all end up joining the group and running simultaneously. By the time you've added some sort of mutex to make it watertight, you no longer need the process groups.
This might be acceptable if your process only gets started by cron, once every minute or every hour, but it makes me a bit nervous that it would go wrong precisely on the day when you don't want it to.
I guess this isn't a very good solution after all, unless someone can improve on it?

I ran into this exact problem last week, and although I did find some good solutions, I decided to make a very simple and clean python package and uploaded it to PyPI. It differs from tendo in that it can lock any string resource name. Although you could certainly lock __file__ to achieve the same effect.
Install with: pip install quicklock
Using it is extremely simple:
[nate#Nates-MacBook-Pro-3 ~/live] python
Python 2.7.6 (default, Sep 9 2014, 15:04:36)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 6.0 (clang-600.0.39)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from quicklock import singleton
>>> # Let's create a lock so that only one instance of a script will run
...
>>> singleton('hello world')
>>>
>>> # Let's try to do that again, this should fail
...
>>> singleton('hello world')
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "/Users/nate/live/gallery/env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/quicklock/quicklock.py", line 47, in singleton
raise RuntimeError('Resource <{}> is currently locked by <Process {}: "{}">'.format(resource, other_process.pid, other_process.name()))
RuntimeError: Resource <hello world> is currently locked by <Process 24801: "python">
>>>
>>> # But if we quit this process, we release the lock automatically
...
>>> ^D
[nate#Nates-MacBook-Pro-3 ~/live] python
Python 2.7.6 (default, Sep 9 2014, 15:04:36)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 6.0 (clang-600.0.39)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from quicklock import singleton
>>> singleton('hello world')
>>>
>>> # No exception was thrown, we own 'hello world'!
Take a look: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/quicklock

linux example
This method is based on the creation of a temporary file automatically deleted after you close the application.
the program launch we verify the existence of the file;
if the file exists ( there is a pending execution) , the program is closed ; otherwise it creates the file and continues the execution of the program.
from tempfile import *
import time
import os
import sys
f = NamedTemporaryFile( prefix='lock01_', delete=True) if not [f for f in os.listdir('/tmp') if f.find('lock01_')!=-1] else sys.exit()
YOUR CODE COMES HERE

On a Linux system one could also ask
pgrep -a for the number of instances, the script
is found in the process list (option -a reveals the
full command line string). E.g.
import os
import sys
import subprocess
procOut = subprocess.check_output( "/bin/pgrep -u $UID -a python", shell=True,
executable="/bin/bash", universal_newlines=True)
if procOut.count( os.path.basename(__file__)) > 1 :
sys.exit( ("found another instance of >{}<, quitting."
).format( os.path.basename(__file__)))
Remove -u $UID if the restriction should apply to all users.
Disclaimer: a) it is assumed that the script's (base)name is unique, b) there might be race conditions.

Here's a good example for django with contextmanager and memcached:
https://docs.celeryproject.org/en/latest/tutorials/task-cookbook.html
Can be used to protect simultaneous operation on different hosts.
Can be used to manage multiple tasks.
Can also be changed for simple python scripts.
My modification of the above code is here:
import time
from contextlib import contextmanager
from django.core.cache import cache
#contextmanager
def memcache_lock(lock_key, lock_value, lock_expire):
timeout_at = time.monotonic() + lock_expire - 3
# cache.add fails if the key already exists
status = cache.add(lock_key, lock_value, lock_expire)
try:
yield status
finally:
# memcache delete is very slow, but we have to use it to take
# advantage of using add() for atomic locking
if time.monotonic() < timeout_at and status:
# don't release the lock if we exceeded the timeout
# to lessen the chance of releasing an expired lock owned by someone else
# also don't release the lock if we didn't acquire it
cache.delete(lock_key)
LOCK_EXPIRE = 60 * 10 # Lock expires in 10 minutes
def main():
lock_name, lock_value = "lock_1", "locked"
with memcache_lock(lock_name, lock_value, LOCK_EXPIRE) as acquired:
if acquired:
# single instance code here:
pass
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()

Here is a cross-platform implementation, creating a temporary lock file using a context manager.
Can be used to manage multiple tasks.
import os
from contextlib import contextmanager
from time import sleep
class ExceptionTaskInProgress(Exception):
pass
# Context manager for suppressing exceptions
class SuppressException:
def __init__(self):
pass
def __enter__(self):
return self
def __exit__(self, *exc):
return True
# Context manager for task
class TaskSingleInstance:
def __init__(self, task_name, lock_path):
self.task_name = task_name
self.lock_path = lock_path
self.lock_filename = os.path.join(self.lock_path, self.task_name + ".lock")
if os.path.exists(self.lock_filename):
raise ExceptionTaskInProgress("Resource already in use")
def __enter__(self):
self.fl = open(self.lock_filename, "w")
return self
def __exit__(self, exc_type, exc_val, exc_tb):
self.fl.close()
os.unlink(self.lock_filename)
# Here the task is silently interrupted
# if it is already running on another instance.
def main1():
task_name = "task1"
tmp_filename_path = "."
with SuppressException():
with TaskSingleInstance(task_name, tmp_filename_path):
print("The task `{}` has started.".format(task_name))
# The single task instance code is here.
sleep(5)
print("The task `{}` has completed.".format(task_name))
# Here the task is interrupted with a message
# if it is already running in another instance.
def main2():
task_name = "task1"
tmp_filename_path = "."
try:
with TaskSingleInstance(task_name, tmp_filename_path):
print("The task `{}` has started.".format(task_name))
# The single task instance code is here.
sleep(5)
print("Task `{}` completed.".format(task_name))
except ExceptionTaskInProgress as ex:
print("The task `{}` is already running.".format(task_name))
if __name__ == "__main__":
main1()
main2()

import sys,os
# start program
try: # (1)
os.unlink('lock') # (2)
fd=os.open("lock", os.O_CREAT|os.O_EXCL) # (3)
except:
try: fd=os.open("lock", os.O_CREAT|os.O_EXCL) # (4)
except:
print "Another Program running !.." # (5)
sys.exit()
# your program ...
# ...
# exit program
try: os.close(fd) # (6)
except: pass
try: os.unlink('lock')
except: pass
sys.exit()