Running Python from Command Line

Question

I wrote a very simple python program in hope that I could run it from the Windows command line. In the terminal I type python.exe hw.py and instead of running the program I get the python interpreter. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

Program:

def hello():
    return "Hello World!"


if __name__ == "__main__":
    hello()

I've also tried even simpler programs such as

print("Hello world!")

and

return "Hello World!"

but nothing works. The goal here is to get output in the console. Thanks!

Are you typing it as python.exe hw.py? Or python.exe \n hw.py? — Morgan Thrapp
– Morgan Thrapp, Commented Nov 13, 2015 at 16:08
docs.python.org/2/faq/… this is what you need, just run as my_script.py — gevra
– gevra, Commented Nov 13, 2015 at 16:11
If you have python in your PATH in windows you should just be able to type python path/to/your/file/hw.py — Avantol13
– Avantol13, Commented Nov 13, 2015 at 16:20

Avantol13 · Accepted Answer · 2015-11-13 16:39:51Z

2

To summarize my comments as an answer, to call the file from the command line you need the location to your python installation in your PATH variable in Windows. Then you can just use the following in the command line:

python path/to/file/filename.py

If you're trying to print to the console you need to use print("Hello!") and not return.

answered Nov 13, 2015 at 16:39

Avantol13

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1 Comment

Eryk Sun Over a year ago

If the system is configured correctly, just run path/to/file/filename.py. Managing PATH for multiple Python installations is a pain (except with virtual environments). With Python 3 installed, .py scripts should be associated with py.exe, which lets you use virtual Unix shebangs such as #!/usr/bin/python or #!/usr/bin/python3, or explicit Windows paths in the shebang such as #!C:\Python27\python.exe. Just set a common scripts directory in PATH.

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