How to run a command line in Python

Question

I am trying to execute

"C:/Program Files/AnsysEM/AnsysEM15.0/Win64/Designer.exe" -runscriptandexit "C:/Python27/simula_SIR_Phyton.py"

that is a to run a script in a program and I am not able to do it. I have succeed to run a single file like:

os.startfile("C:/Users/amrodri.UPVNET/Desktop/Scripts/SIR_europea_script.adsn")

But I have not succeed with the other problem. Can anyone help? I have tried among others:

os.system("C:/Program Files/AnsysEM/AnsysEM15.0/Win64/Designer.exe" -runscriptandexit "C:/Python27/simula_SIR_Phyton.py") 

Answer 1

os.system takes a single string as an argument. In order to have double quotes within a Python string (without terminating the string), you need to escape them using a backslash, like this:

os.system("\"C:/Program Files/AnsysEM/AnsysEM15.0/Win64/Designer.exe\" -runscriptandexit \"C:/Python27/simula_SIR_Phyton.py\"") 

Or, alternatively, use single quotes instead:

os.system("'C:/Program Files/AnsysEM/AnsysEM15.0/Win64/Designer.exe' -runscriptandexit 'C:/Python27/simula_SIR_Phyton.py'")

See:
os.system()
Using quotes at the command line (This is Unix-specific, but should also apply to Windows if you're using something like PowerShell)

Answer 2

the culprit here is the space between Program and files . In windows, when you want to execute an address with an space in it, you need to put it between "", which is going to get mixed with Python's quotations. An easy solution would be to use raw '' in Python. For example:

import os
ansysedt_exe = r'"C:\Program Files\AnsysEM\AnsysEM16.0\Win64\ansysedt.exe" -runscriptandexit C:\automation\test_1.py'
print ansysedt_exe
os.system(ansysedt_exe)

Please notice that the designer address was put between "c:\\...\\designer.exe" because of the space in program files folder name, but we don't have to do the same for the script address, because there is no space there. Also just a heads up, in R16, designer.exe is going to be merged with AnsysEDT.exe .