running a program via exec*

[mylinuxboxroot]

Rajarshi Guha <rxg218 at psu.edu> wrote in message
news:a54294$l0e at r02n01.cac.psu.edu...
> Hi,
>   this is somewaht related to my earlier post. When I use execl(progname)
> it seems to work. However it always looks for the progrma in the current
> directory. Is there any way to specify the path from the environment
> without having to type out the path to the program itself?
>
> TIA,
>
> --
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> Rajarshi Guha                  | email: rajarshi at presidency.com
> 417 Davey Laboratory           | web  : http:// www.jijo.cjb.net
> Dept. Of Chemistry             | ICQ  : 123242928
> Pennsylvania State University  | AIM  : LoverOfPanda
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> All syllogisms have three parts, therefore this is not a syllogism.

yep
Yes, of course there is a way,

If I understand your question correctly you are going
to run a script FROM in some directory lets say the directory
is named

on unix
/mypycode/mypydir

on windows
c:\mypycode\mypydir


Now in the script file you want the script to execute
a program which is in some other directory on your
system lets say its named myprogdir.  And lets say
the actual path to that location is

on unix
/stuff/junk/myprogdir

on windows
c:\stuff\junk\myprogdir

and the program name you want to execute is some
simple program that shows the date lets say its
named showdate and its located in the myprogdir directory

the program below

---
#put she bang here for unix posix systems

import os
import string    #for the str() built in method
#---import sys

#operating system hard drive variables
myname = os.name
print "the os is: ", myname
if os.name == 'posix':
    myrootdir = "/"
elif os.name == 'nt':
    myrootdir = "c:\\"
else: print "This machine OS is something other than nt or posix\n"
print "the root dir is: ",myrootdir

#will be used to show me what current directory I am in
wheredir = os.getcwd()

#list the files in this directory
mydirfiles = os.listdir(os.curdir)

print "my current dir is: ", wheredir
print "the file listing is: \n", mydirfiles
print "##########\n"

# change to the other programs directory location
thedir = os.path.join(str(myrootdir),'stuff', 'junk', 'myprogdir')
os.chdir(thedir)

print "CHANGED- NOW my current dir is: ", thedir

#list the files in this directory
showfiles = os.listdir(os.curdir)

print "CHANGED- NOW the file listing is: \n", showfiles
print "##########\n"

#--now launch your program file named showdate
os.system("showdate")