Starting terminal applications from within python

[Jean-Paul Calderone]

On 2 Feb 2006 09:01:11 -0800, sleepylight <sleepylight at gmail.com> wrote:
>Hi
>
>I'm staring to learn python for some systems administration projects
>and so far this looks like a really great alternative to using shell
>for everything.  The python docs on the web site are really great, but
>I could use come clarification on passing arguments using the
>os.spawnlp() function.
>
>For example, if I run  "xterm -e /opt/itt/ncbr/bin/linux/bar" I get an
>xterm executing my nice little test program.  However, if I try to run
>that same commad in python it doesn't work so well.
>
>>>> os.spawnlp(os.P_NOWAIT, "/usr/bin/xterm", "/usr/bin/xterm", "-e /opt/itt/ncbr/bin/linux/bar")

Try this:

    os.spawnlp(
        os.P_NOWAIT,
        "/usr/bin/xterm",
        "/usr/bin/xterm",
        "-e",
        "/opt/itt/ncbr/bin/linux/bar")

Each argumnent after the 2nd to spawnlp() is an argument to the program you are running.  passing "-e /path" as a single argument is the same as trying to do this on the command line:

    xterm "-e /path"

which I think you will find fails in the same way.

Jean-Paul