How to determine if Python script was run via command line?

If you’re running it without a terminal, as when you click on "Run" in Nautilus, you can just check if it’s attached to a tty:

import sys
if sys.stdin and sys.stdin.isatty():
    # running interactively
    print("running interactively")
else:
    with open('output','w') as f:
        f.write("running in the background!n")

But, as ThomasK points out, you seem to be referring to running it in a terminal that closes just after the program finishes. I think there’s no way to do what you want without a workaround; the program is running in a regular shell and attached to a terminal. The decision of exiting immediately is done just after it finishes with information it doesn’t have readily available (the parameters passed to the executing shell or terminal).

You could go about examining the parent process information and detecting differences between the two kinds of invocations, but it’s probably not worth it in most cases. Have you considered adding a command line parameter to your script (think --interactive)?

This is typically done manually/, I don’t think there is an automatic way to do it that works for every case.

You should add a --pause argument to your script that does the prompt for a key at the end.

When the script is invoked from a command line by hand, then the user can add --pause if desired, but by default there won’t be any wait.

When the script is launched from an icon, the arguments in the icon should include the --pause, so that there is a wait. Unfortunately you will need to either document the use of this option so that the user knows that it needs to be added when creating an icon, or else, provide an icon creation function in your script that works for your target OS.

My solution was to create command line scripts using setuptools. Here are a the relevant parts of myScript.py:

def main(pause_on_error=False):
    if run():
        print("we're good!")
    else:
        print("an error occurred!")
        if pause_on_error:
            raw_input("nPress Enter to close.")
        sys.exit(1)

def run():
    pass  # run the program here
    return False  # or True if program runs successfully

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main(pause_on_error=True)

And the relevant parts of setup.py:

setup(
entry_points={
        'console_scripts': [
            'myScript = main:main',
        ]
    },
)

Now if I open myScript.py with the Python interpreter (on Windows), the console window waits for the user to press enter if an error occurs. On the command line, if I run ‘myScript’, the program will never wait for user input before closing.

Although this isn’t a very good solution, it does work (in windows at least).

You could create a batch file with the following contents:

@echo off
for %%x in (%cmdcmdline%) do if /i "%%~x"=="/c" set DOUBLECLICKED=1
start <location of python script>
if defined DOUBLECLICKED pause

If you want to be able to do this with a single file, you could try the following:

@echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
set LF=^


::  The 2 empty lines are necessary
for %%x in (%cmdcmdline%) do if /i "%%~x"=="/c" set DOUBLECLICKED=1
echo print("first line of python script") %LF% print("second and so on") > %temp%/pyscript.py
start /wait console_title pyscript.py
del %temp%/pyscript.py
if defined DOUBLECLICKED pause

Batch code from: Pausing a batch file when double-clicked but not when run from a console window?
Multi-line in batch from: DOS: Working with multi-line strings

If you run python IDLE then “pythonw.exe” is being used to run coding while when you run the command line “python.exe” is used to run coding. The python folder path can vary so you have to revert the path to the python folder. m = ‘\’ and m = m[0] is to get m to be ” because of escaping.

import sys
a = sys.executable
m = '\'
m = m[0]
while True:
    b = len(a)
    c = a[(b - 1)]
    if c == m:
        break
    a = a[:(b - 1)]
if sys.executable == a + 'pythonw.exe':
    print('Running in Python IDLE')
else:
    print('Running in Command line')

Okay, the easiest way I found and made was to simply run the program in the command line, even if it was ran in the Python IDLE.

exist = lambda x: os.path.exists(x)    ## Doesn't matter

if __name__ == '__main__':

    fname = "SomeRandomFileName"    ## Random default file name

    if exist(fname)==False:         ## exist() is a pre-defined lambda function
        jot(fname)                  ## jot() is a function that creates a blank file
        os.system('start YourProgram.py')    ## << Insert your program name here
        os.system('exit'); sys.exit()   ## Exits current shell (Either IDLE or CMD)

    os.system('color a')            ## Makes it look cool! :p
    main()                          ## Runs your code
    os.system("del %s" % fname)     ## Deletes file name for next time

Add this to the bottom of your script and once ran from either IDLE or Command Prompt, it will create a file, re-run the program in the CMD, and exits the first instance.
Hope that helps! 🙂

Update for later versions (e.g. Python 3.6 on Ubuntu 16.04): The statement to get the name has changed to psutil.Process(os.getpid()).parent().name()

I believe this CAN be done. At least, here is how I got it working in Python 2.7 under Ubuntu 14.04:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import os, psutil

# do stuff here

if psutil.Process(os.getpid()).parent.name == 'gnome-terminal':
    raw_input("Press enter to close...")

Note that — in Ubuntu 14 with the Gnome desktop (aka Nautilus) — you might need to do this:

• from a Nautilus window (the file browser), select Edit(menu)->Preferences(item) then Behavior(tab)->Executable Text Files(section)->Ask Each Time(radio).
• chmod your script to be executable, or — from a Nautilus window (the file browser) — right click on the file->Properties(item) then Permissions(tab)->Execute:Allow executing file as program(checkbox)
• double-click your file. If you select “Run in Terminal”, you should see the “Type enter to close…” prompt.
• now try from a bash prompt; you should NOT see the prompt.

To see how this works, you can fiddle with this (based on the answer by from @EduardoIvanec):

#!/usr/bin/env python
import os
import sys
import psutil

def parent_list(proc=None, indent=0):
    if not proc:
        proc = psutil.Process(os.getpid())
    pid = proc.pid
    name = proc.name
    pad = " " * indent
    s = "{0}{1:5d} {2:s}".format(pad, pid, name)
    parent = proc.parent
    if parent:
        s += "n" + parent_list(parent, indent+1)
    return s

def invoked_from_bash_cmdline():
    return psutil.Process(os.getpid()).parent.name == "bash"

def invoked_as_run_in_terminal():
    return psutil.Process(os.getpid()).parent.name == "gnome-terminal"

def invoked_as_run():
    return psutil.Process(os.getpid()).parent.name == "init"


if sys.stdin.isatty():
    print "running interactively"
    print parent_list()
    if invoked_as_run_in_terminal():
        raw_input("Type enter to close...")

else:
    with open('output','w') as f:
        f.write("running in the background!n")
        f.write("parent list:n")
        f.write(parent_list())

From the idea behind this answer, adding for Win10 compatibility (Ripped from Python 2.7 script; modify as needed):

import os, psutil
status = 1
if __name__ =="__main__":
    status = MainFunc(args)
    args = sys.argv
    running_windowed = False
    running_from = psutil.Process(os.getpid()).parent().name()
    if running_from == 'explorer.exe':
        args.append([DEFAULT OR DOUBLE CLICK ARGS HERE])
        running_windowed = True
    if running_windowed:
        print('Completed. Exit status of {}'.format(status))
        ready = raw_input('Press Enter To Close')
    sys.exit(status)

There is a number of switch like statements you could add to be more universal or handle different defaults.

I also had that question and, for me, the best solution is to set an environment variable in my IDE (PyCharm) and check if that variable exists to know if the script is being executed either via the command line or via the IDE.

To set an environment variable in PyCharm check:
How to set environment variables in PyCharm?

Example code (environment variable: RUNNING_PYCHARM = True):

import os

# The script is being executed via the command line
if not("RUNNING_PYCHARM" in os.environ):
    raw_input("Press enter to close.")

I hope it works for you.

What I wanted was answered here: Determine if the program is called from a script in Python

You can just determine between “python” and “bash”. This was already answered I think, but you can keep it short as well.

#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import psutil
import os

ppid = os.getppid() # Get parent process id
print(psutil.Process(ppid).name())

Based on existing solutions and using sets:

import psutil

def running_interactively():
    """Return True if any of our parent processes is a known shell."""
    shells = {"cmd.exe", "bash.exe", "powershell.exe", "WindowsTerminal.exe"}
    parent_names = {parent.name() for parent in psutil.Process().parents()}
    # print(parent_names)
    # print(f"Shell in parents? {shells & parent_names}")
    return bool(shells & parent_names)


if not running_interactively():
    input("nPress ENTER to continue.")

This answer is currently specific to Windows, but it can be reconfigured to work with other operating systems in theory. Rather than installing psutil module like most of these answers recommend, you can make use of the subprocess module and the Windows tasklist command to explicitly get the name of the parent process of your Python program.

import os
import subprocess
shells = {"bash.exe", "cmd.exe", "powershell.exe", "WindowsTerminal.exe"}
# These are standard examples, but it can also be used to detect:
# - Nested python.exe processes (IDLE, etc.)
# - IDEs used to develop your program (IPython, Eclipse, PyCharm, etc.)
# - Other operating system dependent shells

s = subprocess.check_output(["tasklist", "/v", "/fo", "csv", "/nh", "/fi", f"PID eq {os.getppid()}"])
# Execute tasklist command to get the verbose info without the header (/nh) of a single process in CSV format (/fo csv)
# Such that its PID is equal to os.getppid()

entry = s.decode("utf-8").strip().strip('"').split('","')
# Decode from bytes to str, remove end whitespace and quotations from CSV format
# And split along the quote delimited commas
# This process may differ and require adjustment when used for an OS other than Windows

condition = entry and entry[0] in shells
# Check first that entry is not an empty sequence, meaning the process has already ended
# If it still exists, check if the first element -- the executable -- exists as an element of the set of executables you're looking for

I hope this is helpful for anyone looking for an answer to this problem while minimizing the number of dependencies you’d need.

This was tested in Python 3.8 and uses an f-string in the subprocess.check_output line of the code, so please be sure to convert the f-string to a compatible syntax if you’re working with a version of Python before f-strings were introduced.