I have always used a mac to write and run python scripts. However, I have a bunch of files on a PC that I need to run a script on. I have never really used a PC and don't know how to run the script.
If I go to the command program on the PC and type in python, nothing happens. How do I find where the python path is in order to get into the python prompt? Also, once I am in the prompt, is the importing of modules the same as in a Unix system?
Python isn't added to the system environment's PATH variable by default on windows. You have to either add the path to the directory containing the Python.exe file to the PATH variable, or call python explicitly.
This issue has been addressed in the Python documentation:
Python Documentation: # How to run a Python program under windows
Assuming Python is installed, it is usually placed in a folder prefixed with "Python" and the major/minor version. E.g. C:\Python26
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I have Python 3.6 and Windows 7.
I am able to successfully start the python interpreter in interactive mode, which I have confirmed by going to cmd, and typing in python, so my computer knows how to find the interpreter.
I am confused however, as to how to access files from the interpreter. For example, I have a file called test.py (yes, I made sure the correct file extension was used).
However, I do not know how to access test.py from the interpreter. Let us say for the sake of argument that the test.py file has been stored in C:\ How then would I access test.py from the interpreter?
The simplest way would be to just do the following in cmd:
C:\path\to\file\test.py
Windows recognizes the file extension and runs it with Python.
Or you can change the directory to where the Python program/script is by using the cd command in the command prompt:
cd C:\path\to\file
Start Python in the terminal and import the script using the import function:
import test
You do not have to specify the .py file extension. The script will only run once per process so you'll need to use the reload function to run it after it's first import.
You can make python run the script from a specific directory:
python C:\path\to\file\test.py
In command prompt you need to navigate to the file location. In your case it is in C:\ drive, so type:
cd C:\
and then proceed to run your program:
python test.py
or you could do it in one line:
python C:\test.py
I may be misunderstanding what you are seeking, but I think what you are asking for is a IDE-like environment where you can load Python scripts, edit, and debug.
You already have IDLE, https://docs.python.org/3.6/library/idle.html, which came with the Python installation.
There are many IDEs available for Python. https://wiki.python.org/moin/IntegratedDevelopmentEnvironments Personally, I like using PyDev on Eclipse.
I am using Windows 10 and have Python installed. The new update brought bash to windows, but when I call python from inside bash, it refers to the Python installation which came with the bash, not to my Python installed on Windows. So, for example, I can't use the modules which I have already installed on Windows and would have to install them separately on the bash installation.
How can I (and can I?) make bash point to my original Windows Python installation? I see that in /usr/bin I have a lot of links with "python" inside their name, but I am unsure which ones to change, and if changing them to Windows directories would even work because of different executable formats.
As of Windows 10 Insider build #14951, you can now invoke Windows executables from within Bash.
You can do this by explicitly calling the absolute path to an executable (e.g. c:\Windows\System32\notepad.exe), or by adding the executable's path to the bash path (if it isn't already), and just calling, for example, notepad.exe.
Note: Be sure to append the .exe to the name of the executable - this is how Linux knows that you're invoking something foreign and routes the invocation request to the registered handler - WSL in this case.
So, in your case, if you've installed Python 2.7 on Windows at C:\, you might invoke it using a command like this from within bash:
$ /mnt/c/Python2.7/bin/python.exe
(or similar - check you have specified each folder/filename case correctly, etc.)
HTH.
I do not have Windows 10 installed, but I use Babun and I had the same problem. As I read aliases work well in Windows 10 shell so simply add alias in your .bashrc pointing to your Python installation directory:
alias python /mnt/c/Python27/python
You have at least four options:
Specify the complete absolute path to the python executable you want to use.
Define an alias in your .bashrc file
Modify the PATH variable in your .bashrc file to include the location of the python version you wish to use.
Create a symlink in a directory which is already in your PATH.
Really frustrated with this as one thing works at one time. Sometimes import filename.py works. But in the tutorials all I see is python filename.py. But when I try to give that, I am facing an error like invalid syntax.
I have edited all the environment variables and I have C:\Python27 folder in the same location. To be able to run the files using python filename.py what are the conditions that must be met? What should be the current working directory? Should the .py files be there in the same working directory?
import name is a python keyword for use within a python script and/or the python interactive interpreter (repl).
python filename.py is a shell command for use at a command prompt or within a shell script to run the python interpreter on a given python script file.
The working directory does not matter other than for whether the file listed in python filename.py can be found.
So for python filename.py to work you must be in the same directory as filename.py but you could just as readily use python c:\users\user\some\other\path\filename.py in which case the current directory isn't used to find the file.
If you get python syntax errors from attempting to run python on a python file that's a python error in the code and you will need to look at the python file to see what the error is.
Just to be clear, typing python filename.py only works from the Terminal (i.e. cmd.exe, Windows PowerShell, the "Terminal" application on a Linux kernel, etc.), not from the Python interpreter (i.e. python.exe), and only works if you have used the cd command to change into the directory in which the file is saved (so that the terminal knows where to look for filename.py). import filename can be used from the Python interpreter, but is not the ideal method as it creates a compiled version of filename.py and can only be used once (you would have to restart the interpreter to do so again). I'm not sure whether this works in the official Python distribution available from the Python website, but at least in the Anaconda distribution, you can run a file from the Python interpreter using runfile("C:/Users/CurrentUser/Subfolder/filename.py").
I have 3 versions of Python (2.5, 2.7, 3.2) installed on a Windows machine, 2.5 being the default one (first in PATH and default for open action).
Now the weird thing appear when I run a python script with filename.py (without specifying the interpreter) or by clicking the file in Explorer: Python 2.5 is running the script (expected) BUT Python 2.7 PATH being inserted before the original system PATH.
Still if I look at the command line, it seems that Python 2.5 was executed.
Where is the first record in PATH (C:\Ptyhon27\) comming from, I can assure you this is added when the scripts runs, but by whom?
As you already observed I do have several versions of Python in PATH, this is not something anormal, because they can also have versioned executables instead and because Windows always picks the first one it the PATH.
Looking closely, it seems you have various versions of Python in your PATH environment variable.
The standard Python installer for Windows doesn't add itself to the PATH; I always do this manually for the version of Python I want to use by default. If you're using a different Python installer (such as ActiveState or Enthought) that may be the cause, but I haven't tried those.
In any case, you can edit your PATH environment variable manually and clean it up, leaving only the path to the version of Python you wish to be the default, as described here (scroll down a bit to get to the relevant section).
You might be interested in the Python Launcher for Windows project, a.k.a. PEP 397. Install it, and remove all Python dirs from PATH, leaving only the launcher one, and use py/pyw instead of python/pythonw.
Ahh, I think I have it! You didn't mention exactly how you're running Python...
Python adds the directory from which the command is run to the PATH! If you run it from the command line, this will be the directory in which the Python file you execute is located, or the directory you ran Python from if you just opened an interpreter. However, various tools, interpreters and development environments start up differently, and some of them will use a certain Python interpreter (depends on their configuration) and add its location to PATH.
If you want more help, please give a detailed description of how you're running Python when this happens.
I have just installed Python on my Windows 7. I thought that after that I will be able to run python on the command prompt but it is not the case. After the installation I also found out that I can run the python command shell. This is nice. But what should I do if I want to save my program in a file and then I want to run this program (in Linux, for example, I typed "python file_name.py" in the command line).
You need to add the python bin directory to your path. Follow the instructions here and add c:\python26\bin to the path (unless you installed python in a non-default location).
Is python.exe in your windows path? Try to look at the PATH environment variable and see if the installation folder of python is listed there.
You need to update your environment variables to include the path to the Python executable.
On XP you can do this by right clicking on "My Computer" -> Properties and then going to the "Advanced" tab.