I will try to be brief!

For whatever reason, I couldn't make the entirety of my program in python, so I had to outsource one specific task to php (a language I do not know very well). As the python program runs, it is supposed to trigger the php program to run, and then do a few things afterwards which is not a problem.

It seems to me that, to be able to run something through python, you need it to be able to run through cmd first, and then you can make python use cmd to run the program. I had a few issues there, because the programs are on different drives, and the php program references other files and locations in the same directory and in sub-directories to where it is, this means I couldn't execute in one line of cmd, but first had to change directory, to then execute the php program from the folder it's in. Because my command wasn't just one line, I made a batch file containing all the steps.

My current working method is to open up cmd, change directory in cmd to where the php file is, and then run the php file. I had to add php to the "Environment Variable Path" to be able to do this. Here is the batch file that currently works when run by me:

cd /d C:
cd C:\Users\UserMain\Desktop\php\colorextract
php (2).php

When I double click this bat file, from my E drive, it successfully executes the php program. But when I tell python to execute the batch file, that is where things go wrong.

Here is my python code, apologies for the name of the bat file:

import os

os.system('cmd /k "bitch.bat"')

The resultant cmd window then goes thru the steps of the batch file: 1) it changes to the right directory, 2) it is unable to execute the php file because:

'php' is not recognised as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

Now, this is the standard error you get if you were to try running a php program without having added php to the "Environment Variable Path", I know this because I went through that same thing. But if I manually open a cmd window, not administrative or anything, I can 1) successfully perform the steps outlined in batch file, and program runs, and 2) I can even run the bat file, and that also runs the program.

The cmd window opened by python does not seem to be able to reference the "Environment Variable Path", or it is for another reason somehow handicapped against being able to do all the things that a normal cmd widow can. How can this be fixed?

Thanks in advance to anyone who reads this!

Edit: I found that python had not detected the changes I made to the environment variables the day before, hence why python's cmd was giving the exact error that not having php in the environment variable gives. After I restarted my computer, my code worked. Thank you to @Gerhard and @Aaron Junker for making me think much harder about this issue.

CodePudding user response：

This seems to me like both instances use different environment variables.

Open

System Properties -> Advanced -> environment variables and look that PHP is in the PATH variable in user variables and in System variables.

CodePudding user response：

so I found a command that can be run after importing os.

print(os.environ)

I ran this, and it told me that Python could not see that php had been added to the environment variables, well, more likely that python did not have the most up to date information regarding what was in the path variable(s).

Restarting my computer made the changes kick in, and now my original code works. Whilst I do feel very stupid, I'm just happy that this is resolved.