Question

In my /etc/bash.bashrc file, I have following:

export SYNCTOOL=/root/Desktop/gb
alias synctest='python $SYNCTOOL/App.py'

In App.py:

from xml.dom.minidom import parse
XML = parse('$SYNCTOOL/Data/Config.xml')

When I type “synctest” in my shell, I’m getting the error below:

root@bt:~# synctest
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/root/Desktop/gb/App.py", line 12, in <module>
    XML = parse('$SYNCTOOL/Data/Config.xml')
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/xml/dom/minidom.py", line 1918, in parse
    return expatbuilder.parse(file)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/xml/dom/expatbuilder.py", line 922, in parse
    fp = open(file, 'rb')
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '$SYNCTOOL/Data/Config.xml'

When I look for the file with “cat” command:

root@bt:~# cat $SYNCTOOL/Data/Config.xml
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<AllConfigurations>

        <!-- PROGRAM OPTIONS START -->
..
...

So, I’m really confused. What should I do?

Answer 1

Bash variable are not automatically expanded, use os.environ to access them:

XML = parse('%s/Data/Config.xml' % os.environ['SYNCTOOL'])