Question

I commonly use os.path.exists() to check if a file is there before doing anything with it.

I’ve run across a situation where I’m calling a executable that’s in the configured env path, so it can be called without specifying the abspath.

Is there something that can be done to check if the file exists before calling it? (I may fall back on try/except, but first I’m looking for a replacement for os.path.exists())

btw – I’m doing this on windows.

Answer 1

You could get the PATH environment variable, and try ‘exists()’ for the .exe in each dir in the path. But that could perform horribly.

example for finding notepad.exe:

import os for p in os.environ['PATH'].split(os.pathsep):     print os.path.exists(os.path.join(p, 'notepad.exe')) 

more clever example:

if not any([os.path.exists(os.path.join(p, executable) for p in os.environ['PATH'].split(os.pathsep)]):     print 'can't find %s' % executable 

Is there a specific reason you want to avoid exception? (besides dogma?)