Starting a python shell with arguments

Question

is it possible to pass arguments to the python in linux without having a file? I'm currently not able to create a file or change permissions and I don't want to write it inside my code like this:

import sys
sys.argv = ["arg1", "arg2", ...]

I'd like to hand over the arguments while I'm starting the shell:

python <arguments>

This is not a duplicate. The other question is about quoting command-line arguments to impact how they are received by `sys.argv` in a script; this question is about passing them *to an interactive REPL session*. — Karl Knechtel, Aug 09 '22 at 08:36

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 02 '18 at 11:11

2

While is is questionable if passing commands line arguments to an interactive shell is best practice, it is indeed possible by passing - instead of the the scripts file name:

$ python - a1 a2
Python 2.7.14 (default, Sep 23 2017, 22:06:14) 
[GCC 7.2.0] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import sys
>>> sys.argv
['-', 'a1', 'a2']

answered Jan 02 '18 at 11:11

Klaus D.

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That's what I wanted. Thanks. – Michael Koeppen Jan 02 '18 at 11:43

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 02 '18 at 11:21

If you are using IPython as interactive shell, you can pass arguments to scripts you run using the %run magic command:

In [1]: %run myscript.py arg1 arg2 ...

(It's not really clear to me what you are trying to achieve, but you probably want to pass the arguments to some script.)

Starting a python shell with arguments

2 Answers2