How can I open a shell with a command in python?

Question

The following command opens a new shell and opens nano in it, when I type it into bash:

gnome-terminal -e "bash -c 'nano test; bash'"

So I tried the same in my python code with subprocess:

import subprocess
command = "gnome-terminal"
args = " -e \"bash -c 'nano test; bash'\""
subprocess.call([command, args])

I have tried already many combinations. Basically I just want to open a shell with a specific file in nano.

First I thought this would be one the easiest steps, but it turned out to be very difficult. Don't know if the problem exists due to the masking or if it's a common problem with passing variables like I am used to in shells. So it might be rather a question for AskUbuntu or the Unix section ... not sure ...

chepner · Accepted Answer · 2015-12-04 13:44:42Z

1

The args should be the same set of individual strings you use on the command line. It's easier to think about if you construct the list all at once. gnome-terminal is the command, and it takes two arguments. (The second argument is more commonly thought of as the argument to the -e option, but from the caller's perspective, it's just two arguments. gnome-terminal itself is the one that groups them together as an option/argument pair.)

command = ["gnome-terminal", "-e", "bash -c 'nano test; bash'"]
subprocess.call(command)

(Note that you could just pass a single string and let the shell sort it out, but the explicit argument list is superior.

subprocess.call('''gnome-terminal -e "bash -c 'nano test; bash'"''', shell=True)

)

edited Dec 4, 2015 at 13:44

answered Dec 4, 2015 at 13:33

chepner

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2 Comments

h0ch5tr4355 Over a year ago

Very nice thank you. I tried command = ["gnome-terminal", "-e bash", "-c 'nano test; bash'"], but that didnt work, I thought there is always an option with a hyphen and then some string... Probably no SO related topic anymore

chepner Over a year ago

It's still on-topic; the issue was understanding how the shell looks at the command line so that you can translate it into the correct list to pass to call.

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