Test if executable exists in Python?

I know this is an ancient question, but you can use distutils.spawn.find_executable. This has been documented since python 2.4 and has existed since python 1.6.

import distutils.spawn
distutils.spawn.find_executable("notepad.exe")

Also, Python 3.3 now offers shutil.which().

Easiest way I can think of:

def which(program):
    import os
    def is_exe(fpath):
        return os.path.isfile(fpath) and os.access(fpath, os.X_OK)

    fpath, fname = os.path.split(program)
    if fpath:
        if is_exe(program):
            return program
    else:
        for path in os.environ["PATH"].split(os.pathsep):
            exe_file = os.path.join(path, program)
            if is_exe(exe_file):
                return exe_file

    return None

Edit: Updated code sample to include logic for handling case where provided argument is already a full path to the executable, i.e. "which /bin/ls". This mimics the behavior of the UNIX 'which' command.

Edit: Updated to use os.path.isfile() instead of os.path.exists() per comments.

Edit: path.strip('"') seems like the wrong thing to do here. Neither Windows nor POSIX appear to encourage quoted PATH items.

Use shutil.which() from Python's wonderful standard library. Batteries included!

For python 3.3 and later:

import shutil

command = 'ls'
shutil.which(command) is not None

As a one-liner of Jan-Philip Gehrcke Answer:

cmd_exists = lambda x: shutil.which(x) is not None

As a def:

def cmd_exists(cmd):
    return shutil.which(cmd) is not None

For python 3.2 and earlier:

my_command = 'ls'
any(
    (
        os.access(os.path.join(path, my_command), os.X_OK) 
        and os.path.isfile(os.path.join(path, my_command)
    )
    for path in os.environ["PATH"].split(os.pathsep)
)

This is a one-liner of Jay's Answer, Also here as a lambda func:

cmd_exists = lambda x: any((os.access(os.path.join(path, x), os.X_OK) and os.path.isfile(os.path.join(path, x))) for path in os.environ["PATH"].split(os.pathsep))
cmd_exists('ls')

Or lastly, indented as a function:

def cmd_exists(cmd, path=None):
    """ test if path contains an executable file with name
    """
    if path is None:
        path = os.environ["PATH"].split(os.pathsep)

    for prefix in path:
        filename = os.path.join(prefix, cmd)
        executable = os.access(filename, os.X_OK)
        is_not_directory = os.path.isfile(filename)
        if executable and is_not_directory:
            return True
    return False

Just remember to specify the file extension on windows. Otherwise, you have to write a much complicated is_exe for windows using PATHEXT environment variable. You may just want to use FindPath.

OTOH, why are you even bothering to search for the executable? The operating system will do it for you as part of popen call & will raise an exception if the executable is not found. All you need to do is catch the correct exception for given OS. Note that on Windows, subprocess.Popen(exe, shell=True) will fail silently if exe is not found.

Incorporating PATHEXT into the above implementation of which (in Jay's answer):

def which(program):
    def is_exe(fpath):
        return os.path.exists(fpath) and os.access(fpath, os.X_OK) and os.path.isfile(fpath)

    def ext_candidates(fpath):
        yield fpath
        for ext in os.environ.get("PATHEXT", "").split(os.pathsep):
            yield fpath + ext

    fpath, fname = os.path.split(program)
    if fpath:
        if is_exe(program):
            return program
    else:
        for path in os.environ["PATH"].split(os.pathsep):
            exe_file = os.path.join(path, program)
            for candidate in ext_candidates(exe_file):
                if is_exe(candidate):
                    return candidate

    return None