How to run python script with a specific working directory?

Question

tl;dr: looking for:

python3.5 --working-dir=~/company_repo/ ~/company_repo/something.py

There are company Python scripts owned by the teams responsible for them; my bash scripts call a sequence of them:

`myscript.sh`

python3.5 ~/company_repo/scripts/helper1.py someargument
python3.5 ~/company_repo/scripts/helper2.py

Some company scripts rely on being run within the company repo, because they call git commands, or load files by relative path. I cannot change the company scripts.

Are there ways to tell Python runtimes to use different working directories? I do not want to do cd ~/company_repo in my bash scripts.

Note that I did a lot of googling, but all results were showing how to set working dir from WITHIN a python script, whereas I want to set it from outside, without changing the script. — Tomáš Zato
– Tomáš Zato, Commented Aug 18, 2022 at 23:38
Not the best thing we can do but I do something like cd ~/company_repo/ && python3.5 executable.py — Pranjal Doshi
– Pranjal Doshi, Commented Aug 18, 2022 at 23:48
@PranjalDoshi I disagree, that is a perfect suggestion. You should post it as an answer. Maybe make it to (cd... & python... ) using the parantheses will not alter the current working dir of the bash script — FlyingTeller
– FlyingTeller, Commented Aug 19, 2022 at 0:34
You can wrap cd... & python... in a bash file and push it in one of folder in PATH, something like: cd $1 && python3 $2. If additional arguments for python is desired, maybe this can help: Process all arguments except the first one — The Long Nguyen
– The Long Nguyen, Commented Aug 19, 2022 at 2:24

Pranjal Doshi · Accepted Answer · 2022-08-19 01:19:26Z

5

This is not a pythonic way but we can use the bash to mimic the same behavior.

you can try as suggested by @FlyingTeller

(cd company_repo && python3 helper.py)

or you can also use pushd & popd

pushd company_repo && python3 helper.py && popd

answered Aug 19, 2022 at 1:19

Pranjal Doshi

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1 Comment

Tomáš Zato Over a year ago

Yeah, the second is what I am using after I failed to find a command line argument/env variable to do that.

FelipeC · Accepted Answer · 2022-08-19 05:36:42Z

1

You can try using env --chdir:

env --chdir=$dir python3.5 $dir/scripts/helper1.py someargument

answered Aug 19, 2022 at 5:36

FelipeC

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Comments

Diego Torres Milano · Accepted Answer · 2022-08-19 20:02:21Z

1

Create a script like this one

#! /bin/bash
if cd company_repo
then
    exec /usr/local/bin/python3.5 "$@"
fi

name it ~/bin/python3.5, make it executable

chmod +x ~/bin/python3.5

be sure ~/bin is before the directory containing the real pythno3.5 in your PATH:

PATH=~/bin:$PATH

then when you run (that would remain unchanged):

python3.5 ~/company_repo/scripts/helper1.py someargument
python3.5 ~/company_repo/scripts/helper2.py

it will change the directory and then use the real python3.5 to execute it.

answered Aug 19, 2022 at 20:02

Diego Torres Milano

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1 Comment

Tomáš Zato Over a year ago

Upvote for the out of the box approach, but I used the pushd solution in the end.

Philippe · Accepted Answer · 2022-08-19 09:08:56Z

0

You can define a function (called python3-5)：

#!/usr/bin/env bash
  
python3-5()(
    cd "$(dirname "$1")"
    python3.5 "$@"
)

python3-5 ~/company_repo/scripts/helper1.py someargument
python3-5 ~/company_repo/scripts/helper2.py

answered Aug 19, 2022 at 9:08

Philippe

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