Finding the right Python executable on Windows

[Geoff Bache]

Hi all,

I have a Python process on Windows and would like to start a Python
subprocess using the same interpreter. I wonder how to go about this?

First, I tried the obvious

subprocess.Popen([ sys.executable, "subproc.py", ... ])

but that fails, because my process has a "native launcher", (i.e. C:
\path\mylauncher.exe, which is just a wrapper around the Python
program) and hence sys.executable returns this path instead of the
interpreter location. It isn't appropriate to use the launcher for the
subprocess.

I also tried using sys.exec_prefix but there didn't seem to be any
standard location for the interpreter under this directory in any
case.

I feel certain there must be some way to do this as it seems a rather
basic thing somehow, can anyone give me a hint?

Regards,
Geoff Bache

 

[Geoff Bache]

Hi all,

I have a Python process on Windows and would like to start a Python
subprocess using the same interpreter. I wonder how to go about this?

First, I tried the obvious

subprocess.Popen([ sys.executable, "subproc.py", ... ])

but that fails, because my process has a "native launcher", (i.e. C:
\path\mylauncher.exe, which is just a wrapper around the Python
program) and hence sys.executable returns this path instead of the
interpreter location. It isn't appropriate to use the launcher for the
subprocess.

I also tried using sys.exec_prefix but there didn't seem to be any
standard location for the interpreter under this directory in any
case.

I feel certain there must be some way to do this as it seems a rather
basic thing somehow, can anyone give me a hint?

Regards,
Geoff Bache

If sys.executable doesn't work due to this "native launcher", you could
try something like this:...     full = os.path.join(path, "python.exe")
...     if os.path.exists(full):
...             full_path = full
...'c:\\python31\\python.exe'

Thanks Brian!

It never occurred to me that the Python executable would be on
sys.path, but it seems to be on the installations I've tried on
Windows. It isn't on other platforms of course, but it's easy enough
to only do this on Windows.

I wonder why it's like this? I can't see anything in that directory I
could import...

Regards,
Geoff