Restart python-script from within itself

Question

I have a python-based GTK application that loads several modules. It is run from the (linux) terminal like so:

./myscript.py --some-flag setting

From within the program the user can download (using Git) newer versions. If such exists/are downloaded, a button appear that I wish would restart the program with newly compiled contents (including dependencies/imports). Preferably it would also restart it using the contents of sys.argv to keep all the flags as they were.

So what I fail to find/need is a nice restart procedure that kills the current instance of the program and starts a new using the same arguments.

Preferably the solution should work for Windows and Mac as well but it is not essential.

Answer 1

You're looking for os.exec*() family of commands.

To restart your current program with exact the same command line arguments as it was originally run, you could use the following:

os.execv(sys.argv[0], sys.argv) 

Answer 2

I think this is a more elaborate answer, as sometimes you may end up with too many open file objects and descriptors, that can cause memory issues or concurrent connections to a network device.

import os import sys import psutil import logging  def restart_program():     """Restarts the current program, with file objects and descriptors        cleanup     """      try:         p = psutil.Process(os.getpid())         for handler in p.get_open_files() + p.connections():             os.close(handler.fd)     except Exception, e:         logging.error(e)      python = sys.executable     os.execl(python, python, *sys.argv)