Changing python process name (or argv[0])

[Juha Autero]

"Daniel Fackrell" <newsgroups.NOSPAM at dfackrell.mailshell.com> writes:

> Hrm... maybe I'm just naive on this point, but it seems to me that having
> python programs show up by name is ps, top, etc. would be a nice benefit,
> especially where many different python processes might be running
> simultaneously.  I'd even consider that such should be the default. 

There is a rather standard way to achieve that in UN*X. Make the file
executable and use shebang to specify python interpreter:

$ cat demo.py
#!/usr/bin/python
import time
print "Start of program"
time.sleep(120) # Give us time to check the process
print "End of program"
$ chmod u+x demo.py
$ ./demo.py &
[1] 6767
$ Start of program

$ ps
  PID TTY          TIME CMD
 6762 pts/2    00:00:00 bash
 6767 pts/2    00:00:00 demo.py
 6768 pts/2    00:00:00 ps
$ End of program

[1]+  Done                    ./demo.py
$ 

It's not portable to other operating systems, but neither is argv
mugging. 

-- 
Juha Autero
http://www.iki.fi/jautero/
Eschew obscurity!