Python file read problem - python

file_read = open("/var/www/rajaneesh/file/_config.php", "r")
contents = file_read.read()
print contents
file_read.close()
The output is empty, but in that file all contents are there. Please help me how to do read and replace a string in __conifg.php.

Usually, when there is such kind of issues, it is very useful to start the interactive shell and analyze all commands.
For instance, it could be that the file does not exists (see comment from freiksenet) or you do not have privileges to it, or it is locked by another process.
If you execute the script in some system (like a web server, as the path could suggest), the exception could go to a log - or simply be swallowed by other components in the system.
On the contrary, if you execute it in the interactive shell, you can immediately see what the problem was, and eventually inspect the object (by using help(), dir() or the module inspect). By the way, this is also a good method for developing a script - just by tinkering around with the concept in the shell, then putting altogether.
While we are here, I strongly suggest you usage of IPython. It is an evolution of the standard shell, with powerful aids for introspection (just press tab, or a put a question mark after an object). Unfortunately in the latest weeks the site is not often not available, but there are good chances you already have it installed on your system.

I copied your code onto my own system, and changed the filename so that it works on my system. Also, I changed the indenting (putting everything at the same level) from what shows in your question. With those changes, the code worked fine.
Thus, I think it's something else specific to your system that we probably cannot solve here (easily).

Would it be possible that you don't have read access to the file you are trying to open?

Related

How to protect Python source code, while making the file available for running?

So, I recently made a Python program that I want to send to someone with them being able to execute it, but not read the code I have typed in it. Any ideas how to do it?
BTW, I want it to be irreversible
In short, here are my Parameters:
Should remain a Python file
Can't be reversed
Code should not be readable
Should still have the ability to be run
The criteria you've posted are inconsistent.
Python is an interpreted language. The entity running the language (i.e. Python interpreter) is reading your code and executing it, line by line. If you wrap it up to send to someone, their Python interpreter must have read permissions on the file, whether it's source code or "compiled" Python (which is easily decompiled into equivalent source code).
If we take a wider interpretation of "send to someone", there may be a business solution that serves your needs. You would provide your functionality, rather than the code: deploy it as a service from some available server: your own, or rented space. To do this, you instead provide an interface to your functionality.
If this fulfills your needs, you now have your next research topic.

Python IDLE/Terminal return back after error

When reading a book or just coding on terminal/IDLE it's common to make typo, forgot brace or comma etc. After I got error and all what I wrote before is lost.
Then I have to write down code again..
Is there any way/option to return back all what write before and just edit mistake and continue to code?
In Idle (at least my version, Python 2.7.10 on windows), you can simply copy paste your code. In the python interpreter, you can't afaik, however you can use the up/down arrow keys to recall lines you previously "submitted" (i.e. typed and pressed enter).
If I understood correctly, IDLE is a GUI (graphical user interface - a visual representation of a program rather just through text) made to have a bit more features for programming in Python. You can use IDLE interactively, like in Terminal (a.k.a command line), or use it to write your script rather than in a separate text editor. Then once you save your script/program you can do neat things like run it directly from IDLE. There's nothing more special about the Terminal, you just have to do some more work.
Furthermore, all the code you have written on your GUI is on the cache memory which is used in system to store information recently accessed by a processor. So, I suggest you write again your code you can't recover them without saving.
To avoid these kind of problems use Git!
Git is a version control system that is used for software development and other version control tasks.
IDLE's Shell window is statement rather that line oriented. One can edit any line of a statement before submitting it for execution. After executing, one may recall any statement by either a) placing the cursor anywhere on the statement and hitting Enter, or b) using the history-next and history-prev actions. On Windows, these are bound, by default, to Alt-p and Alt-p. To check on your installation, Select Options => IDLE preferences on the menu. In the dialog, select the Keys tab. Under Custom Key Bindings, find the 'histor-xyz' actions in the alphabetical list.
For short, one-off scripts, I have a scratch file called tem.py. Since I use it often, it is usually accessible via File => Recent files.

How to enable other programs to modify existing program

I am in the works of creating a python program similar to this
. Anyway what i want to do is have users be able to modify there own programs but i need help understanding how this works. I have looked through the source code and am confused where this happens even if someone could just point me towards that that would be very helpful. I know that the programs will not be sandboxed but that is not something im worried about at the moment. If you could point me in any direction that would be great! Thank you!
The "robot programs" are just stored as plain text files.
There's a general-purpose text editor in editor.py. When you open a robot in a given view, e.g., the Qt4 view in qt4view.py, it just instantiates a text editor and hands it the robot's file. Again, the fact that the robot's file is a Python script doesn't matter; it just edits it as a text file.
The battle code, meanwhile, opens the same robot files as Python code that the text editor opens as text files. You can see this code in game.py: It just uses the subprocess module to run Python, passing the robot file as an argument.
My other answer deals with what you actually asked. But I don't think it's what you really wanted to know.
You just want to know how to run some Python script, that you've got a pathname for, in a separate Python interpreter, right?
While it's possible to figure that out from the pybotwar code, there's a whole lot of extra stuff that will get in the way of understanding it—the conf.py file, the configurable extra flags, etc.
But the answer is simple: Use the subprocess module, just as you would for running any program. In this case, the Python interpreter is the executable (usually you want sys.executable, the same Python interpreter you're using), and the script you want to run as an argument. For example:
script_output = subprocess.check_output([sys.executable, script_path])
The subprocess documentation explains all the different options very nicely.

Start Another Program From Python >Separately<

I'm trying to run an external, separate program from Python. It wouldn't be a problem normally, but the program is a game, and has a Python interpreter built into it. When I use subprocess.Popen, it starts the separate program, but does so under the original program's Python instance, so that they share the first Python console. I can end the first program fine, but I would rather have separate consoles (mainly because I have the console start off hidden, but it gets shown when I start the program from Python with subprocess.POpen).
I would like it if I could start the second program wholly on its own, as though I just 'double-clicked on it'. Also, os.system won't work because I'm aiming for cross-platform compatibility, and that's only available on Windows.
I would like it if I could start the second program wholly on its own, as though I just 'double-clicked on it'.
As of 2.7 and 3.3, Python doesn't have a cross-platform way to do this. A new shutil.open method may be added in the future (possibly not under that name); see http://bugs.python.org/issue3177 for details. But until then, you'll have to write your own code for each platform you care about.
Fortunately, what you're trying to do is simpler and less general than what shutil.open is ultimately hoped to provide, which means it's not that hard to code:
On OS X, there's a command called open that does exactly what you want: "The open command opens a file (or a directory or URL), just as if you had double-clicked the file's icon." So, you can just popen open /Applications/MyGame.app.
On Windows, the equivalent command is start, but unfortunately, that's part of the cmd.exe shell rather than a standalone program. Fortunately, Python comes with a function os.startfile that does the same thing, so just os.startfile(r'C:\Program Files\MyGame\MyGame.exe').
On FreeDesktop-compatible *nix systems (which includes most modern linux distros, etc.), there's a very similar command called xdg-open: "xdg-open opens a file or URL in the user's preferred application." Again, just popen xdg-open /usr/local/bin/mygame.
If you expect to run on other platforms, you'll need to do a bit of research to find the best equivalent. Otherwise, for anything besides Mac and Windows, I'd just try to popen xdg-open, and throw an error if that fails.
See http://pastebin.com/XVp46f7X for an (untested) example.
Note that this will only work to run something that actually can be double-clicked to launch in Finder/Explorer/Nautilus/etc. For example, if you try to launch './script.py', depending on your settings, it may just fire up a text editor with your script in it.
Also, on OS X, you want to run the .app bundle, not the UNIX executable inside it. (In some cases, launching a UNIX executable—whether inside an .app bundle or standalone—may work, but don't count on it.)
Also, keep in mind that launching a program this way is not the same as running it from the command line—in particular, it will inherit its environment, current directory/drive, etc. from the Windows/Launch Services/GNOME/KDE/etc. session, not from your terminal session. If you need more control over the child process, you will need to look at the documentation for open, xdg-open, and os.startfile and/or come up with a different solution.
Finally, just because open/xdg-open/os.startfile succeeds doesn't actually mean that the game started up properly. For example, if it launches and then crashes before it can even create a window, it'll still look like success to you.
You may want to look around PyPI for libraries that do what you want. http://pypi.python.org/pypi/desktop looks like a possibility.
Or you could look through the patches in issue 3177, and pick the one you like best. As far as I know, they're all pure Python, and you can easily just drop the added function in your own module instead of in os or shutil.
As a quick hack, you may be able to (ab)use webbrowser.open. "Note that on some platforms, trying to open a filename using this function, may work and start the operating system’s associated program. However, this is neither supported nor portable." In particular, IIRC, it will not work on OS X 10.5+. However, I believe that making a file: URL out of the filename actually does work on OS X and Windows, and also works on linux for most, but not all, configurations. If so, it may be good enough for a quick&dirty script. Just keep in mind that it's not documented to work, it may break for some of your users, it may break in the future, and it's explicitly considered abuse by the Python developers, so I wouldn't count on it for anything more serious. And it will have the same problems launching 'script.py' or 'Foo.app/Contents/MacOS/foo', passing env variables, etc. as the more correct method above.
Almost everything else in your question is both irrelevant and wrong:
It wouldn't be a problem normally, but the program is a game, and has a Python interpreter built into it.
That doesn't matter. If the game were writing to stdout from C code, it would do the exact same thing.
When I use subprocess.Popen, it starts the separate program, but does so under the original program's Python instance
No it doesn't. It starts an entirely new process, whose embedded Python interpreter is an entirely new instance of Python. You can verify that by, e.g., running a different version of Python than the game embeds.
so that they share the first Python console.
No they don't. They may share the same tty/cmd window, but that's not the same thing.
I can end the first program fine, but I would rather have separate consoles (mainly because I have the console start off hidden, but it gets shown when I start the program from Python with subprocess.POpen).
You could always pipe the child's stdout and stderr to, e.g., a logfile, which you could then view separately from the parent process's output, if you wanted to. But I think this is going off on a tangent that has nothing to do with what you actually care about.
Also, os.system won't work because I'm aiming for cross-platform compatibility, and that's only available on Windows.
Wrong; os.system is available on "Unix, Windows"--which is probably everywhere you care about. However, it won't work because it runs the child program in a subshell of your script, using the same tty. (And it's got lots of other problems—e.g., blocking until the child finishes.)
When I use subprocess.Popen, it starts the separate program, but does so under the original program's Python instance...
Incorrect.
... so that they share the first Python console.
This is the crux of your problem. If you want it to run in another console then you must run another console and tell it to run your program instead.
... I'm aiming for cross-platform compatibility ...
Sorry, there's no cross-platform way to do it. You'll need to run the console/terminal appropriate for the platform.

Dangerous Python Keywords?

I am about to get a bunch of python scripts from an untrusted source.
I'd like to be sure that no part of the code can hurt my system, meaning:
(1) the code is not allowed to import ANY MODULE
(2) the code is not allowed to read or write any data, connect to the network etc
(the purpose of each script is to loop through a list, compute some data from input given to it and return the computed value)
before I execute such code, I'd like to have a script 'examine' it and make sure that there's nothing dangerous there that could hurt my system.
I thought of using the following approach: check that the word 'import' is not used (so we are guaranteed that no modules are imported)
yet, it would still be possible for the user (if desired) to write code to read/write files etc (say, using open).
Then here comes the question:
(1) where can I get a 'global' list of python methods (like open)?
(2) Is there some code that I could add to each script that is sent to me (at the top) that would make some 'global' methods invalid for that script (for example, any use of the keyword open would lead to an exception)?
I know that there are some solutions of python sandboxing. but please try to answer this question as I feel this is the more relevant approach for my needs.
EDIT: suppose that I make sure that no import is in the file, and that no possible hurtful methods (such as open, eval, etc) are in it. can I conclude that the file is SAFE? (can you think of any other 'dangerous' ways that built-in methods can be run?)
This point hasn't been made yet, and should be:
You are not going to be able to secure arbitrary Python code.
A VM is the way to go unless you want security issues up the wazoo.
You can still obfuscate import without using eval:
s = '__imp'
s += 'ort__'
f = globals()['__builtins__'].__dict__[s]
** BOOM **
Built-in functions.
Keywords.
Note that you'll need to do things like look for both "file" and "open", as both can open files.
Also, as others have noted, this isn't 100% certain to stop someone determined to insert malacious code.
An approach that should work better than string matching us to use module ast, parse the python code, do your whitelist filtering on the tree (e.g. allow only basic operations), then compile and run the tree.
See this nice example by Andrew Dalke on manipulating ASTs.
built in functions/keywords:
eval
exec
__import__
open
file
input
execfile
print can be dangerous if you have one of those dumb shells that execute code on seeing certain output
stdin
__builtins__
globals() and locals() must be blocked otherwise they can be used to bypass your rules
There's probably tons of others that I didn't think about.
Unfortunately, crap like this is possible...
object().__reduce__()[0].__globals__["__builtins__"]["eval"]("open('/tmp/l0l0l0l0l0l0l','w').write('pwnd')")
So it turns out keywords, import restrictions, and in-scope by default symbols alone are not enough to cover, you need to verify the entire graph...
Use a Virtual Machine instead of running it on a system that you are concerned about.
Without a sandboxed environment, it is impossible to prevent a Python file from doing harm to your system aside from not running it.
It is easy to create a Cryptominer, delete/encrypt/overwrite files, run shell commands, and do general harm to your system.
If you are on Linux, you should be able to use docker to sandbox your code.
For more information, see this GitHub issue: https://github.com/raxod502/python-in-a-box/issues/2.
I did come across this on GitHub, so something like it could be used, but that has a lot of limits.
Another approach would be to create another Python file which parses the original one, removes the bad code, and runs the file. However, that would still be hit-and-miss.

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