How to execute Python scripts in Windows?

I have a simple script blah.py (using Python 2):

import sys
print sys.argv[1]

If I execute my script by:

python c:/..../blah.py argument

It prints argument but if I execute script by:

blah.py argument

error occurs:

IndexError...

So arguments do not pass to script.

python.exe in PATH. Folder with blah.py also in PATH.
python.exe is default program to execute *.py files.

What is the problem?

Solution 1:

When you execute a script without typing "python" in front, you need to know two things about how Windows invokes the program. First is to find out what kind of file Windows thinks it is:

    C:\>assoc .py
    .py=Python.File

Next, you need to know how Windows is executing things with that extension. It's associated with the file type "Python.File", so this command shows what it will be doing:

    C:\>ftype Python.File
    Python.File="c:\python26\python.exe" "%1" %*

So on my machine, when I type "blah.py foo", it will execute this exact command, with no difference in results than if I had typed the full thing myself:

    "c:\python26\python.exe" "blah.py" foo

If you type the same thing, including the quotation marks, then you'll get results identical to when you just type "blah.py foo". Now you're in a position to figure out the rest of your problem for yourself.

(Or post more helpful information in your question, like actual cut-and-paste copies of what you see in the console. Note that people who do that type of thing get their questions voted up, and they get reputation points, and more people are likely to help them with good answers.)

Brought In From Comments:

Even if assoc and ftype display the correct information, it may happen that the arguments are stripped off. What may help in that case is directly fixing the relevant registry keys for Python. Set the

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\python26.exe\shell\open\command

key to:

"C:\Python26\python26.exe" "%1" %*

Likely, previously, %* was missing. Similarly, set

 HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\py_auto_file\shell\open\command

to the same value. See http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2010/12/14/problem-passing-arguments-to-python-scripts-on-windows/

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\python.exe\shell\open\command The registry path may vary, use python26.exe or python.exe or whichever is already in the registry.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\py_auto_file\shell\open\command

Solution 2:

you should make the default application to handle python files be python.exe.

right click a *.py file, select "Open With" dialog. In there select "python.exe" and check "always use this program for this file type" (something like that).

then your python files will always be run using python.exe

Solution 3:

Additionally, if you want to be able to run your python scripts without typing the .py (or .pyw) on the end of the file name, you need to add .PY (or .PY;.PYW) to the list of extensions in the PATHEXT environment variable.

In Windows 7:

right-click on Computer
left-click Properties
left-click Advanced system settings
left-click the Advanced tab
left-click Environment Variables...
under "system variables" scroll down until you see PATHEXT
left-click on PATHEXT to highlight it
left-click Edit...
Edit "Variable value" so that it contains ;.PY (the End key will skip to the end)
left-click OK
left-click OK
left-click OK

Note #1: command-prompt windows won't see the change w/o being closed and reopened.

Note #2: the difference between the .py and .pyw extensions is that the former opens a command prompt when run, and the latter doesn't.

On my computer, I added ;.PY;.PYW as the last (lowest-priority) extensions, so the "before" and "after" values of PATHEXT were:

before: .COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC

after .COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC;.PY;.PYW

Here are some instructive commands:

C:\>echo %pathext%
.COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC;.PY;.PYW

C:\>assoc .py
.py=Python.File

C:\>ftype Python.File
Python.File="C:\Python32\python.exe" "%1" %*

C:\>assoc .pyw
.pyw=Python.NoConFile

C:\>ftype Python.NoConFile
Python.NoConFile="C:\Python32\pythonw.exe" "%1" %*

C:\>type c:\windows\helloworld.py
print("Hello, world!")  # always use a comma for direct address

C:\>helloworld
Hello, world!

C:\>

Solution 4:

How to execute Python scripts in Windows?

You could install pylauncher. It is used to launch .py, .pyw, .pyc, .pyo files and supports multiple Python installations:

T\:> blah.py argument

You can run your Python script without specifying .py extension if you have .py, .pyw in PATHEXT environment variable:

T:\> blah argument

It adds support for shebang (#! header line) to select desired Python version on Windows if you have multiple versions installed. You could use *nix-compatible syntax #! /usr/bin/env python.

You can specify version explicitly e.g., to run using the latest installed Python 3 version:

T:\> py -3 blah.py argument

It should also fix your sys.argv issue as a side-effect.

Solution 5:

I encountered the same problem but in the context of needing to package my code for Windows users (coming from Linux). My package contains a number of scripts with command line options.

I need these scripts to get installed in the appropriate location on Windows users' machines so that they can invoke them from the command line. As the package is supposedly user-friendly, asking my users to change their registry to run these scripts would be impossible.

I came across a solution that the folks at Continuum use for Python scripts that come with their Anaconda package -- check out your Anaconda/Scripts directory for examples.

For a Python script test, create two files: a test.bat and a test-script.py.

test.bat looks as follows (the .bat files in Anaconda\Scripts call python.exe with a relative path which I adapted for my purposes):

@echo off
set PYFILE=%~f0
set PYFILE=%PYFILE:~0,-4%-script.py
"python.exe" "%PYFILE%" %*

test-script.py is your actual Python script:

import sys
print sys.argv

If you leave these two files in your local directory you can invoke your Python script through the .bat file by doing

test.bat hello world
['C:\\...\\test-scripy.py', 'hello', 'world']

If you copy both files to a location that is on your PATH (such as Anaconda\Scripts) then you can even invoke your script by leaving out the .bat suffix

test hello world
['C:\\...Anaconda\\Scripts\\test-scripy.py', 'hello', 'world']

Disclaimer: I have no idea what's going on and how this works and so would appreciate any explanation.