How to get type of hosting window from inside Python?

Question

I would like to know which window is hosting the terminal running Python. In specific, I would like to distinguish between windows terminal and the old CMD console on Windows machine.

EDIT: I'm not sure I'm using correct words and there is an overload of words anyway. To be more specifc, I want to know the host window becaue they have different behaviours. Here's a photo of different windows, one of which Windows Terminal. powershell or cmd can be run in either of the windows, I'm interested in figuring out that window host.

Does this answer your question? [How to determine if I'm in powershell or cmd?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34471956/how-to-determine-if-im-in-powershell-or-cmd) — fhorrobin, Dec 12 '21 at 21:10

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 12 '21 at 20:57

0

If you use the psutil and os packages, you can use

parent_pid = os.getppid()
print(psutil.Process(parent_pid).name())

to get the parent process' name.

answered Dec 12 '21 at 20:57

BaguetteYeeter

81
4

got this output `ipython.exe` on both terminals. I'm interested in the hosting shell. Could it be that IPython who knows this? – Alex Deft Dec 12 '21 at 20:58
@AlexDeft This is because you're running the program with ipython, and not directly from the cmd or powershell. Can't really help any further because I dont use windows. – BaguetteYeeter Dec 12 '21 at 21:01
Hmmm, do you want me to run it from terminal itself? then yes, it works. I just tried it `python -c "import os;import psutil;print(psutil.Process(os.getppid()).name())"`got `pwsh`. Should I modify my question to highlight IPython? – Alex Deft Dec 12 '21 at 21:09
please have a look at the modified quetstion – Alex Deft Dec 12 '21 at 21:22

Maurice Meyer · Answer 2 · 2021-12-12T22:03:07.827

You could query WMI as I prefer to use OS tools (should work with psutil aswell, as mentioned by @BaguetteYeeter):

import os
import subprocess
import sys

print("Python interpreter: %s" % sys.executable)
parentShellName = None
# root process to look for parents until we find a process name
# which has not python in it's name
parentPid = os.getpid()

while 1:
    # In case of ipython the second parent process is the Shell, so we are looping!
    # Probably there should be a counter to finish the while loop in case no shell could be detected!
    cmd = 'wmic process where "ProcessId=%s" get parentprocessid /format:list' % parentPid
    proc = subprocess.Popen(cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True)
    out, err = proc.communicate()
    key, parentPid = out.strip().decode('utf-8').split('=')

    print("Parent ProcessId: %s" % parentPid)

    cmd2 = 'wmic process where "ProcessId=%s" get name /format:list' % parentPid
    proc = subprocess.Popen(cmd2, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True)
    out, err = proc.communicate()
    key, parentShellName = out.strip().decode('utf-8').split('=')

    if 'python' not in parentShellName.lower():
        break

print(parentShellName)

Out:

How to get type of hosting window from inside Python?

2 Answers2