Call Python script from bash with argument

I know that I can run a python script from my bash script using the following:

python python_script.py

But what about if I wanted to pass a variable / argument to my python script from my bash script. How can I do that?

Basically bash will work out a filename and then python will upload it, but I need to send the filename from bash to python when I call it.

Solution 1:

To execute a python script in a bash script you need to call the same command that you would within a terminal. For instance

> python python_script.py var1 var2

To access these variables within python you will need

import sys
print sys.argv[0] # prints python_script.py
print sys.argv[1] # prints var1
print sys.argv[2] # prints var2

Beside sys.argv, also take a look at the argparse module, which helps define options and arguments for scripts.

The argparse module makes it easy to write user-friendly command-line interfaces.