Skip to content

Hidden dependency on which program #259

Open

Description

@Zaczero

There seems to be a hidden dependency on the which program.

['which', 'wkhtmltopdf'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE).communicate()[0]

The way the binary gets discovered is unnecessarily complicated. Instead of starting an external binary (a whole new process), I recommend that the script simply checks the $PATH env variable. The syntax for it is very simple.

Sample solution:

    for directory in os.environ.get('PATH', '').split(os.pathsep):
        potential_path = os.path.join(directory, 'wkhtmltopdf')  # perhaps .exe on windows?
        if os.path.isfile(potential_path) and os.access(potential_path, os.X_OK):
            return potential_path

Activity

  1. stefan6419846 commented on Mar 25, 2024

    @stefan6419846

    It is even easier with recent Python versions by relying on the stdlib shutil.which.

  2. sscotti commented on Mar 26, 2024

    @sscotti

    Is that the same as ?

    `root@ubuntu-s-2vcpu-4gb-amd-sfo3-01:~# which which

    /usr/bin/which`

    I always laugh when I do that because it reminds me of the Wizard of Oz.

    "Wicked Witch of the East - Wikipedia

    The Wicked Witch of the East
    The Wicked Witch of the East was featured in the film The Wizard of Oz (1939), in which she is the sister of the Wicked Witch of the West. As in the book, she is killed when Dorothy's house falls on her."

  3. stefan6419846 commented on Mar 26, 2024

    @stefan6419846

    It should be mostly identical to the known which tool, but implemented in pure Python: https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/1c72265a31eaf8724a5dd16391b951366460b64e/Lib/shutil.py#L1525-L1605

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    No labels
    No labels

    Projects

    No projects

      Milestone

      No milestone

      Relationships

      None yet

      Development

      No branches or pull requests

      Issue actions