Run all Python files in a directory

Question

What is the best way to run all Python files in a directory?

python *.py

only executes one file. Writing one line per file in a shell script (or make file) seems cumbersome. I need this b/c I have a series of small matplotlib scripts each creating a png file and want to create all of the images at once.

PS: I'm using the bash shell.

score 42 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 16 '11 at 10:38

42

bash has loops:

for f in *.py; do python "$f"; done

edited Feb 16 '11 at 10:38

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

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answered Feb 16 '11 at 10:37

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I should have thought of that myself ;) – Gerald Senarclens de Grancy Feb 16 '11 at 10:43
is there a way to run all Python scripts in a directory of directories? For example: I have a "main" folder that has 3 subfolders and I want to run all Python scripts inside those folders – Gabriel Belini Mar 13 '19 at 13:19

score 21 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 12 '12 at 20:40

An alternative is to use xargs. That allows you to parallelise execution, which is useful on today's multi-core processors.

ls *.py|xargs -n 1 -P 3 python

The -n 1 makes xargs give each process only one of the arguments, while the -P 3 will make xargs run up to three processes in parallel.

Run all Python files in a directory

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