How to access the cURL executable with Python subprocess module

Question

I am trying to access the curl executable on my computer using a subprocess call, but when I do so, I get the following error:

WindowsError: [Error 2] The system cannot find the file specified

my code looks as follows

path = 'C:\\Users\\Username\\AppData\\Local\\Continuum\\Anaconda2\\Library\\bin\\curl.exe subprocess.call([path])

I know the path is correct, is there a reason that my script is balking at this? As you can see, I am running the Anaconda2 Python Interpreter, not the standard one from Python.org

Check that os.path.exists(path) is true. I assume you're replacing "UserName" with the actual user name, but try to generalize this to arbitrary users. For example: anaconda_path = os.path.join(os.environ['LOCALAPPDATA'], 'Continuum', 'Anaconda2'); curl_path = os.path.join(anaconda_path, 'Library', 'bin', 'curl.exe'). — Eryk Sun
– Eryk Sun, Commented Jul 1, 2016 at 14:05

kdtong · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-01 20:00:49Z

2

Take a step back and do some sanity checks. Here are some steps to try.

Copy the path in your script, and paste it into the file explorer (remove the escape characters) and verify that the path is indeed correct.
Verify that you have proper permissions to the path
* Copy the executable (curl.exe) to a same location your python script is at, this eliminates the need to specify a path (sanity check)

import subprocess

path = 'curl.exe'
subprocess.call([path])

~~If this works, you can then move it your expected path and verify~~

edited Jul 1, 2016 at 20:00

answered Jul 1, 2016 at 15:33

kdtong

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1 Comment

kdtong Over a year ago

eryksun is absolutely correct. I had written a quick test locally, which worked but I had curl in my path which of course is not true in the general case.

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