How to use python “login shell” with “call”?

Question

I am trying to use python to call environmentally defined functions on a large computer cluster.

These fail due the difference between a login shell and a non-login shell, as I understand it (ie, different init scripts are run).
Although I could try to use the aliased functions directly (although initial tries don't work for my particular case), I would prefer to just generically load the necessary files to have a "login shell" be the one used in python's call function.

I tried something like:

call("sh /etc/profile;sh $HOME/.bash_profile; MY COMMAND", shell=True )

but this doesn't work.

Answer 1

profile files should be read by . or source command.

Executing profile files with sh cause sub-shell to execute the files. Setting environment variables of the sub-shell does not affect the parent shell.

call(". /etc/profile;. $HOME/.bash_profile; MY COMMAND", shell=True )

Answer 2

You can force a login shell with a command line

-sh -c "MY COMMAND"

Prefixing the shell name with - invokes it as a login shell, rather than an ordinary shell.