I have been working on a python script that I want (NEED) to run as a scheduled task on a remote machine.  I got to the point that the script did exactly what I needed when I was interactively running it in a Windows session but had problems when running it as a scheduled task.  The debugging process was cumbersome–make a change, schedule a task to run it, log out of the machine, and wait.  The log back in and repeat the process.

That got old.

So I wrote a script  (tester.py) that calls any other python scripts in the same directory that (1) start with ‘test_’ and (2) there is not a corresponding file with the same base name and ‘.start’ extension.  It would launch ‘test_BaBing.py’ as long as there is not a ‘test_BaBing.start’ in the same directory.  Tester.py continued to run, looping every 60 seconds, until tester.stop exists.

This made the process easier because I could work on my local machine, editing the problematic script, saving changes and within 60 seconds it would be launched on the remote machine.  I could view the results, make additional edits, delete the .start file and it would launch again within 60 seconds.

Within a couple minutes I was able to determine the problem (path related) and fix it.

Happy programmer.

I would recommend using this only while debugging a script–routinely running it could be a security risk since someone could copy a destructive python script into the directory and this would run it.

Download: tester.py

import sys, string, os
import glob
import datetime, shutil
import time, inspect
import getpass

totalstarttime = datetime.datetime.now()

dateString = datetime.date.today().strftime("%Y%m%d_")+datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%H%M%S") #datetime.date.today().strftime("%Y%m%d")
debugfile = inspect.getfile(inspect.currentframe()).replace(".py","_"+dateString+"_Debug.txt")
stopfile = inspect.getfile(inspect.currentframe()).replace(".py",".stop")
newdebugfile = False

codeDir = os.path.dirname(inspect.getfile(inspect.currentframe())).replace("\","/")

def printit(inText):
    global newdebugfile

    print inText

    if os.path.exists(debugfile):
        if (newdebugfile == False):
            tmpfile = open(debugfile,"w")
            newdebugfile = True
        else:
            tmpfile = open(debugfile,"a")
    else:
        tmpfile = open(debugfile,"w")

    tmpfile.write(inText)
    tmpfile.write("n")
    tmpfile.close()
    newdebugfile = True

stopFileExists = False
printit("Code Directory: "+codeDir)
printit("Starting at: "+datetime.date.today().strftime("%Y-%m-%d_")+datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%H:%M:%S"))
printit("Stopfile : "+stopfile+"/n")
while (stopFileExists == False):
    for iFile in glob.glob(codeDir+"/test_*.py"):

        thisStartfile = iFile.replace(".py",".start")

        if not (os.path.exists(thisStartfile)):
            printit ("Launching: "+iFile)
            iTmpfile = open(thisStartfile,"w")
            iTmpfile.write("started")
            iTmpfile.close()
            os.system("Start "+iFile)

    if (os.path.exists(stopfile)):
        stopFileExists = True
    else:
        time.sleep(60)

    printit("nEnd of Loop: "+datetime.date.today().strftime("%Y-%m-%d_")+datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%H:%M:%S")+"n")    

printit("Done!")