Run a Python Script from another Python Script (Using exec function)

As programmers, we are always looking to simplify things and make everything run smoothly as can be. However, when building out a lot of programming scripts it can create a lot of headaches in terms of organization and what runs where and when.

One solution I have found that helps keep things in order is to run scripts from a main script. This helps keep control of a project’s process from start to finish.

In this quick tutorial (using Python3), we are going to run a script and then build another script that will run that first script for us. We will use the .read() and exec functions to accomplish this.

Script 1: Script_1_Print_Text.py

Here we have a very simple script that only will display (print) a line of text (This is the text output of Script 1).

#Run Script 1
print('This is the text output of Script 1')

Output:

This is the text output of Script 1

Script 2: Execute Script 1 from Script 2

Ok, simple enough. Next, we create a second script that will execute that first script and print it’s own text. We use the exec function which is a Python built in function and the .read() function, also a built in function.

#Running the first script
exec(open("Script_1_Print_Text.py".read()))
#Now print text from script 2
print('This is the text output of Script 2')

We have now successfully run the first script from another script with each text string from the scripts showing in the outputs.

To run a script from a different folder or directory, we can also just specify the folder location in the code like below.

folder_location = 'C:/Users/Files/Location'
exec(open("{}/Script_1_Print_Text.py".format(folder_location)).read())

or like this with the folder specified in the code:

exec(open("C:/Users/Files/Location/Script_1_Print_Text.py").read())

Article by Zachary Storella – See more programming posts on our Python Page