Question

I have a module which accepts arguments from the command line, let’s call that module A.

I would like to execute A from another module – B, so that B will set A‘s arguments-

without executing A as a separate process.

Any way to do that?

Answer 1

That depends on how module A takes it’s arguments. If it only looks at sys.argv and has no __main__ test, then you could alter sys.argv:

sys.argv[1:] = ['arg1', 'arg2']

then import module A.

However, if you are writing A yourself, use a function, called from a __main__ test instead:

def main(*args):
    # main code for module

if __name__ == '__main__`:
    import sys
    main(*sys.argv[1:])

then you can import A and call main() directly:

import A
A.main('arg1', 'arg2')

Note that if module A is not your own, and it does have a __main__ test, but does all the work in that if __name__ == '__main__': suite, then you are sunk and have to reproduce that code.