Question

Is there a way to know which application I’m running a python script from?

I can run python from multiple sources, like Textmate, Sublime Text 2 or Terminal (I’m on Mac OSX). How can I know, exactly which tool launched the current python app.

I’ve tried looking into the os and inspect modules, but couldn’t find the solution.

Answer 1

You can use psutil to do this sort of thing in a fairly cross-platform way:

import psutil
import os
my_process = psutil.Process(os.getpid())
parent = my_process.parent
print "Parent process name: " + parent.name

From the psutil documentation:

It currently supports Linux, Windows, OSX and FreeBSD, both 32-bit and 64-bit, with Python versions from 2.4 to 3.3 by using a single code base.

As well as the name you can get the executable path (which might be more useful if you’re selecting from a list of options) and also the full command-line with which it was invoked. You can also get the username who ran the process. See the psutil classes documentation for details of the parameters and the platforms on which they’re available.

As an aside, if at all possible I would structure your code so that you don’t have to modify your behaviour according to the calling application – it would be much preferable to have the calling application pass in a parameter which modifies the behaviour of the shared code. However, I appreciate that sometimes other concerns take precedence over cleanliness of code, so psutil should enable you to do what you requested.