How to call another Python 3 script and pass it some arguments

Question

I'm new to Python. The file "main.py" must call the file "add.py". I want to invoke the interpreter as

python main.py add John Doe Some Possible Names

That is variable length for sys.argv. I want from within main.py to call for add.py and pass it all the arguments except add and main.py. How can I do this?

possible duplicate question https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3781851/run-a-python-script-from-another-python-script-passing-in-args — devesh, Sep 02 '18 at 18:51

Joe Iddon · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-02T19:05:08.547

1

I don't know why you pass in add rather than add.py, but nevertheless, you can use subprocess.call:

import sys, subprocess
subprocess.call([sys.executable, sys.argv[1] + '.py'] + sys.argv[2:])

edited Sep 02 '18 at 19:05

answered Sep 02 '18 at 18:47

Joe Iddon

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add is just an ordinary argument. add.py is the second script. main.py is the main script. – Andrew Sep 02 '18 at 18:53
I know, but why not pass in `add.py` as the argument since that is the script you want to call... Anyway, does this work for you? – Joe Iddon Sep 02 '18 at 18:56
note: it's better to use `sys.executable` instead of `python` because it allows to reuse the same interpreter (some interpreters aren't in the path, or aren't called python) – Jean-François Fabre Sep 02 '18 at 19:04
@Jean-FrançoisFabre Makes sense! Thanks for the tip. – Joe Iddon Sep 02 '18 at 19:04

How to call another Python 3 script and pass it some arguments

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