How To Pass App Argument To Os.system()

I am able to start application using quite simple syntax. Example app='/Applications/MyApp/myAppExecutable' file='/Users/userName/Pictures/myPicture.jpg' cmd='open -a '%s' '%s'' %

Solution 1:

Per the open man page, you have to pass --args before arguments to the program:

--argsAll remaining arguments are passed to the opened application in the
     argv parameterto main().  These arguments arenot opened or inter-
     preted by the open tool.

As an aside, you may want to look into using subprocess. Here's how the command looks like with subprocess:

subprocess.check_call(['open', '-a', app, file])

No fiddling with string interpolation required.

Solution 2:

It is quite possible to submit the application's specific arguments to OS open command. The syntax to open:

open -a /path/to/application/executable.file /filepath/to/the/file/to/open/with/app.ext

It appears it is OK to enclose both paths in double or single quotes such as:

open -a '/path/to/application/executable.file''/filepath/to/the/file/to/open/with/app.ext'

As Ned has mentioned flag --args can be used to specify any Application's specific startup flags. The App specific flags are placed after open's --args flag such as:

open -a /path/to/application/executable.file--args -proj

The problem is that the App specific flags (such as -proj) will only be passed at the time the App is starting up. If it is already running the open -a command will only open a file (if the file_to_be_opened is specified) but won't deliver the App's specific args. By other words the App is only able to receive its args at the time it starts. There is -n flag available to be used with open -a command. When used open -a will start as many instances of Apps as needed. Each of App instances will get the App args properly.

open -a '/path/to/application/executable.file''/filepath/to/the/file/to/open/with/app.ext -n --args -proj "SpecificToApp arg or command" '

It all translates if used with subprocess:

subprocess.check_call(['open', '-a', app, file, '-n', '--args', '-proj', 'proj_flag_values'])

or simply pass it as a string arg to:

os.system(cmdString)