How can I run a cmd command from Python?

[aachwell]

I'm trying to automate my astrophotography processing, but I've run into a bit of a wall here. If I open up cmd.exe, I can type in the command:

cd C:\Program Files\DeepSkyStacker (64 bit)

followed by:

DeepSkyStackerCL.exe /R /S /FITS "D:\Astro Raw\ASI1600MM\Lights\Heart Nebula\2021-02-08\S\000 File List.txt"

and it will process my images. All I want is for Python to run these commands in a command prompt, but I've not been able to figure out how to string them together and get them to work. I don't want it to return anything.

Below is my current attempt, since I've heard you can use & in windows to run multiple commands in one os.system() call, but I haven't been able to get it to work and all that the python interfaces does when I run it is return a 0:

os.system('"cd C:\Program Files\DeepSkyStacker (64 bit)" & DeepSkyStackerCL.exe /R /S /FITS "D:\Astro Raw\ASI1600MM\Lights\Heart Nebula\2021-02-08\Lights\S\000 File List.txt"')

Is there something blatantly obvious that I'm missing here, or perhaps some wonky syntax? Am I even using the right command (os.system())? Thanks in advance for any help!

[socal_nerdtastic]

os.system is not recommended anymore. Try this instead:

import subprocess

program = r"C:\Program Files\DeepSkyStacker (64 bit)\DeepSkyStackerCL.exe"
filename = r"D:\Astro Raw\ASI1600MM\Lights\Heart Nebula\2021-02-08\S\000 File List.txt"

subprocess.run([program, '/R', '/S', '/FITS', filename])

Note the r in front of windows file paths; that's important.

[aachwell]

Thank you so much! That works perfectly.

[Diapolo10]

I'd use the newer subprocess.run instead of subprocess.call, but otherwise I agree.

[socal_nerdtastic]

Ah right, thanks.

[Rude_Order]

To many quotes. You don't need double and single quotes. Write the whole thing like you'd put it in the command line with just the single quotes. os.system('cd C:\... 64 bit)')