How to execute a file within the Python interpreter?

Question

I'm trying to execute a file with Python commands from within the interpreter.

EDIT: I'm trying to use variables and settings from that file, not to invoke a separate process.

Answer 1

Several ways.

• From the shell

  python someFile.py 

• From inside IDLE, hit F5.

• If you're typing interactively, try this (Python3):

  >>> exec(open("filename.py").read()) 

• For Python 2:

  >>> variables= {} >>> execfile( "someFile.py", variables ) >>> print variables # globals from the someFile module 

Answer 2

For Python 2:

>>> execfile('filename.py') 

For Python 3:

>>> exec(open("filename.py").read()) # or >>> from pathlib import Path >>> exec(Path("filename.py").read_text()) 

See the documentation. If you are using Python 3.0, see this question.

See answer by @S.Lott for an example of how you access globals from filename.py after executing it.