I am trying to extract data from a program; its raw data files are encrypted XMLs so my plan is to start the program, then use mouse control commands (e.g. pyautogui) to copy / paste the data.
So far I'm falling at the first hurdle; when I run subprocess.call to start the program, the program gets window focus and my subsequent code doesn't execute until I manually close the program.
workingFolder = self.get_working_folder() # get path where raw data is
subprocess.call('Path\Program.exe') # works, Program.exe starts
print(workingFolder) # this doesn't execute until I close the Program window
EDIT: After further testing I have answered my own question - subprocess.Popen was in fact what I needed, despite my initial doubts about it! Thanks to anyone who looked at my question :).
workingFolder = self.get_working_folder()
subprocess.Popen('Path\Program.exe')
print('This works')
Related
As an assignment for one of my classes, the professor had us download a file containing python code as well as a couple of text files that the python code will analyze.
The problem is, when I click to open the python file, the command window opens, then immediately closes. I can get it to stop from closing if I click on it fast enough, but that stops the code from loading, and any keystroke causes it to close again.
It's the same file every other student downloaded and used with no issue. I've tried re-downloading the file, re-installing python, even trying on a different computer. I've also tried opening it by entering the path file name in the command window with no success. Also no luck trying it in Jupyter Notebook or CodeLab. (And of course, no luck experimenting with the slew of possible solutions on previous Stack Overflow, Reddit, etc. questions).
Any ideas on the potential cause and/or solution?
Edit: cause unknown, but the solution was opening the file with Sypder console.
the file closes immediately because It ended and returned 0, to stop that from happening you can add at the end of the python code something like that:
ending = input("press key to exit")
or just import time and use
time.sleep(5)
you can open your file in the cmd/terminal window and you will be able to see the results
I've only started doing python3 for a paper at university. I don't plan on continuing after this semester is over but I want to do the best I can in this class. However, I am having difficulties with seemingly a basic task.
I've opened a file using f = open() and I've accessed it in the terminal using less. It displays everything out nicely but it doesn't let me close the file or even continuing to code past the printed text.
It just repeats ~ on separate lines and finishes with a highlighted (END)
By typing q, you will be able to exit it
I have a python script that takes some inputs from the user & then executes the code based on the input. The code takes some time to complete; during this code runtime the user can close the terminal(the code is run from a Linux machine)
As soon as the user closes the terminal the script stops as well. I know there are options like nohup but it wouldn't accept any input(where input is required in my script).
How can I fix this?
Requirement is -
Run the script, enter the inputs
Let the code run in the background even if the terminal is closed
Also is there a way to write whatever is being printed in the terminal(during the script runtime) to some file
Linux's screen tmux served my purpose.
There is a work around possible,
you can split your programm into two parts.
And start your background task with:
import os
usr_inp=input("test input: ")
os.popen(f"python3 background_task.py {usr_inp} &")
This should start the other programm in the background, there you can use the input over the sys.argv[1] variable.
(Usually it's not recommended using os.popen)
I'm running a bash script that will play a video with mplayer depending on an input from an Arduino (on/off).
When the movie ends, I need to get a timestamp in a txt file. First question is whether there's a command in mplayer slave mode to tell me that, so I can output a timestamp easily.
If not, here's my strategy so far:
I'm running mplayer in slave mode with a fifo, where I echo "pause", whenever I want it to stop.
So, I've been doing this: echo "get_time_pos" to my fifo, which will tell mplayer to show in my Terminal the current position in the movie in seconds. When I say in my Terminal, it's in the same window where I'm running my script.
Now, I need to store this value in a variable to be able to compare with the total length and then output time.
I'm stuck at getting this output into a variable in my bash script.
I recently put together a small bash library that may grow with time. At the moment, it has the functionality you're looking for. I'll explain how to get the info you seek and then point you to my library which simplifies the task.
To get the information you seek, you don't even need to call get_time_pos. You can simply dump the mplayer (not running in quiet mode) output to a file and search that for the last timestamp. The trick here is that the timestamps listed in the dump may not be intuitive to search because of some special characters that control how text is displayed. You have to replace some of these special characters with new lines so that you can easily search it. Then you have to grab the last two lines in case the last line is not a timestamp.
Using my bash library:
Now, if you would like to simplify this process, check out this little library I wrote. Follow the usage directions on my GitHub to incorporate it, and then when you play a media file, play it with the playMediaFile function. If you do this, you'll be able to call the getElapsedSeconds or getElapsedTimestamp function to retrieve the current playback position or the playback position after mplayer has stopped. Storing it to a variable from within bash would be as simple as:
pos=$(getElapsedSeconds)
or
pos=$(getElapsedTimestamp)
This library contains other functions as well. The isFinishedPlaying function may or may not also be of use to you.
I'm doing some engineering analysis with the help of a FEA program and Python. When the analysis ends I need to press a key to continue. But this is not a normal press any key to continue. Every code executed with the scripts stops. Like a handput debug break. Nothing runs until I press something or switch windows.
I cant use send keys and subprocesses because running code completely stops. Only solution I could come up with is to use another script in another command window with simple send keys command. This extra script is useless if computer is used or another window is active.
I'm a beginner level programmer and maybe I'm missing something simple. I guess the problem is caused by the FEA programs code but I'm not sure. So is there any way to prevent my code from stopping? Thank you for your time.
It seems that the FEA program does the windowing and you cannot do much about it. I actually automate scripting in DIANA FEA. For this program I would try something like pywinauto.
https://github.com/pywinauto/pywinauto
And call your python script from another python script.
from pywinauto import Desktop, Application
import time
app = Application().start("FEA_program.exe my_python_script.py")
while True:
time.sleep(5)
# send key presses to the app every arbitrary seconds