Whereis in Python

Take a look at the walk function in the os module.

Ok, thanks - but let me expand ... I don't know anything about Python.  So, 'walk' functions in Python won't probably help me here - in that I'd not know how to use it [function/module].

I'm just trying to compare languages - for my own interests sake.

As I've said, I've solicited/written a few whereis programs in a variety of languages, but haven't got one in Python - so am curious to see how readable/concise such a program might be.

This is *just* for curiosities' sake -- see www.peetm.com/blog for the past 'efforts'!

# Here is the minimal version. 
import os
for root, dirs, files in os.walk('c:\\program files\\python25'):
  if 'this.txt' in files:
    print root
 
# If you want to pass the file name via the command line 
import os, sys
for root, dirs, files in os.walk('c:\\program files\\python25'):
  if sys.argv[1] in files:
    print root

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@ramrom

Could you tell me how to run this in a console?

Pleas also see:

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/23582539/Whereis-in-Perl.html?anchorAnswerId=22054564#a22054564

Depends (in part) on your OS

In general:

prompt>path-to-python/python.exe path-to-program/program.py this.txt

peetm, you may want to use the following code for determining the full name of the program. When saved to a.py on my computer, the output looks like this:

C:\tmp\___python\t>a.py
C:\tmp\___python\t\a.py
C:\tmp\___python\t\a.py

C:\tmp\___python\t>

Note, the first line shows launching the script. The next two lines are the results of the print commands.

import os     # import the os module only if you find it necessary
import sys    # sys.argv contains command line arguments and also the name of the script
 
pgm = sys.argv[0]
print pgm                   # not neccessarily the full path on some systems
print os.path.abspath(pgm)  # this is absolutized and normalized

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I just re-read your question and noticed you said "along my PC's path". I had misread that as "along my Python path."

You'd have to examine each drive. There are ways to get a list of drives but I don't recall how one does that.

import os, sys
for drive in "CDE": # for example
  for root, dirs, files in os.walk(drive + ":\\"):
    if sys.argv[1] in files:
      print root

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@ramrom

Actually, I mean path as in the PATH environment variable.

Many thanks!

Well, just for your information. This kind of utility is was always called "which" (in UNIX based systems). The name probably came from "WHICH programm will be called when I type PGM on command line" -- i.e. "which PGM".