I want to do the following:
If the bash/python script is launched from a terminal, it shall do something such as printing an error message text. If the script is launched from GUI session like double-clicking from a file browser, it shall do something else, eg display a GUI message box.
You can check to see whether stdin
and stdout
are connected to a terminal or not. When run from a GUI, generally stdin
is not connected at all, and stdout
is connected to a log file. When run from a terminal, both stdin
and stdout
will be connected to a terminal.
In Python:
import os
import sys
if os.isatty(sys.stdout.fileno()):
# print error message text
else:
# display GUI message
You should check that this will work for you, though, since it doesn't do precisely what you asked for. But it's the best thing that I can think of that doesn't depend on too much magic.
You should check that the DISPLAY
environment variable is set before going with GUI code too, since it won't work without that.
Note that terminal users can still redirect stdin
or stdout
to /dev/null
(for example) and this might cause your program to go with the GUI behaviour. So it's far from perfect.
Finally, even though I've given you an answer, please don't do this! It is confusing to users for a program's behaviour to change depending on how it was called.
It can check the value of $DISPLAY
to see whether or not it's running under X11, and $(tty)
to see whether it's running on an interactive terminal. if [[ $DISPLAY ]] && ! tty; then
if [[ $DISPLAY ]] && ! tty; then
chances are good you'd want to display a GUI popup.
In the .desktop file that is the menu-entry in gnome/kde/whatever, add a parameter such as
yourcommand --gui
so the program will be able to know.
Following on to LtWorf's answer (I couldn't describe all this in a comment)
Rather than, or in addition to, a parameter, you can create a shell script then create a second link to it with a different name, say somprog
and gsomeprog
where "gsomeprog" is equivalent to "someprog -gui"
$ mv mydevdir/someprog /usr/local/bin
$ cd /usr/local/bin
$ ln someprog gsomeprog
I prefer hard links to ln -s
in this case because the "two" programs will always sit next to each other, and will never leave a dangling soft link.
In the shell script, check the name that was used to invoke it by inspecting arg zero
#!/bin/sh
mode=console
if [ $(basename ${0}) = gst -o "${1}" = "-gui" ]; then
mode=gui
fi
echo "Mode is ${mode}"
There is, of course, better option processing than "${1}" = "-gui"
available, but that is left as an exercise for the reader.
I like Robie Basak's answer, but be aware of his someprog > /dev/null
caveat.
You could also run some X11 utility like xdpyinfo
; if it runs correctly, you have an X11 server so you are in GUI mode, eg in bash
if xdpyinfo | grep X.Org > /dev/null ; then
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