how to get information of a running prog in python

[Ivan Illarionov]

On Mon, 12 May 2008 20:29:46 -0700, George Sakkis wrote:

> On May 12, 11:02 pm, Jimmy <mcknight0... at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On May 13, 10:36 am, "Dan Upton" <up... at virginia.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 10:19 PM, Jimmy <mcknight0... at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> > > Well, i know it may be a little non-python thing, however, I can
>> > > think
>> > >  of no place better to post this question :)
>>
>> > >  can anyone tell me, in python, how to obtain some information of
>> > >  a running program?
>> > >  paticularly, if i am playing some music in audacious or other
>> > >  media player, how can i get the the name and some other info of
>> > >  current playing song? It seems that audicious doesn't output on
>> > >  run-time --
>> > >  http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>>
>> > In most cases, you'll probably need some sort of API, either in the
>> > program itself or through some sort of plugin, that lets external
>> > programs query it.  For instance, there are some plugins to WinAmp
>> > that allow external programs (like Last.FM or Mog-O-Matic) to see
>> > what track is currently playing.  You may also be able to do
>> > something like get the window title (again, WinAmp's title bar
>> > usually includes the artist and title) and parse it out.  I don't
>> > really know that there's anything specific to Python for accessing
>> > these though, and it may vary depending on media player.
>>
>> > Just my two cents...
>>
>> > -dan
>>
>> thanks!
>>
>> In linux, I am always obfuscated by sort of APIs. Like how to get title
>> information of a running program? where am I supposed to find these
>> APIs
> 
> I think you're a little confused about how computers work in general and
> what a program can do, and you expect there is some general superprogram
> able to decipher what an arbitrary other running program does. The
> sentence "how to get title information of a running program" doesn't
> even make sense for most programs since they don't play music anyway.
> 
> Your best bet is if the *specific* program you're interested in (e.g.
> audacious) exposes this information programmatically in some way. It's
> up to the developers of this application if and how they choose to do
> it. Even if they do it, there's no requirement that the same API will
> work for any other program of the same category, unless there is some
> popular industry standard that most applications implement.
> 
> In short, you'll get more helpful replies at the audacious newsgroup.
> 
> HTH,
> George

George, have you read my post in this thread? What OP wants is actually 
possible and it's quite easy. X server is the "superprogram" that knows 
the names of all GUI window titles.

-- Ivan