Execute custom command using subprocess that is in PATH variable

Question

I want to execute another program that I compiled earlier from python using the subprocess.call(command) function.

However, python states that it cannot find the command. I suspect that subprocess is not able to find my custom command since it does not know the PATH variable of my Ubuntu system. Is it possible to somehow execute the following code, where command is part of my PATH?

import subprocess
subprocess.run("command -args")

Running this code leads to the error command not found.

Gabriel Devillers · Accepted Answer · 2024-12-04 10:10:35Z

3

You can either provide the explicit path to your command:

subprocess.run('/full/path/to/command.sh')

or else modify your PATH variable in your Python code:

import os
os.environ['PATH'] += os.pathsep + '/full/path/to/'
subprocess.run('command.sh')

edited Dec 4, 2024 at 10:10

Gabriel Devillers

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answered Nov 24, 2021 at 20:35

aweeeezy

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2 Comments

Icetime Over a year ago

Thanks, that worked perfectly!

Gabriel Devillers Dec 4, 2024 at 10:16

On Windows modifying the PATH from Python and then calling subprocess worked for me (Python 3.12.2 from Git Bash on Windows 11 23H2) but may not always work: the documentation mentions that [on windows] with shell=False, cwd does not override the current working directory and env cannot override the PATH environment variable. Instead the documention recommends using full path to the executable. See this answer for how to do that.

kevic · Accepted Answer · 2021-11-24 20:41:24Z

1

You can modify the environment variables. But be careful when you pass arguments.

Try something like this:

import os
import subprocess

my_env = os.environ.copy()
my_env["PATH"] = "/usr/test/path:" + my_env["PATH"]
subprocess.run(["command", "-args"], env=my_env)

answered Nov 24, 2021 at 20:41

kevic

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