hbutils.system.os.executable

Executable discovery utilities for system PATH inspection.

This module provides utilities to locate executable files in the system PATH, similar to the Unix which/where commands and the Windows where command. It supports both Unix-like systems and Windows, handling platform-specific search behavior and executable file extensions.

The module contains the following main public components:

• where() - Return all matching executable paths in PATH

• which() - Return the first matching executable path (deprecated)

Note

On Windows, the search includes the current directory and checks common executable extensions (.bat, .cmd, .com, .exe) as defined by the implementation.

Example:

>>> from hbutils.system.os.executable import where
>>> where('python')  
['/usr/bin/python', '/bin/python']

__all__

hbutils.system.os.executable.__all__ = ['where', 'which']

Built-in mutable sequence.

If no argument is given, the constructor creates a new empty list. The argument must be an iterable if specified.

where

hbutils.system.os.executable.where(execfile: str) → List[str]

Return all matching file paths for the given executable.

This function searches through all directories in the system PATH environment variable and returns a list of all absolute paths where the executable file can be found. On Windows, it also checks for common executable extensions (.bat, .cmd, .com, .exe) and includes the current directory in the search path.

Parameters:

execfile (str) – Executable file to locate (such as python).

Returns:

A list of normalized absolute paths to executable files.

Return type:

List[str]

Example:

>>> from hbutils.system.os.executable import where
>>> where('bash')  
['/usr/bin/bash', '/bin/bash']
>>> where('not_installed')
[]

which

hbutils.system.os.executable.which(execfile: str) → str | None

Return the first matching executable path in the system PATH (deprecated).

This function returns the first executable file found in the system PATH, which is typically the one that would be executed when running the command in a terminal. Returns None if no matching executable is found.

Deprecated since version 0.9: Use the native shutil.which() instead. This function will be removed in version 1.0.

Parameters:

execfile (str) – Executable file to locate (such as python).

Returns:

Absolute path of the executable file, or None if not found.

Return type:

Optional[str]

Example:

>>> from hbutils.system.os.executable import which
>>> which('bash')  
'/usr/bin/bash'
>>> which('not_installed') is None
True

Deprecated since version 0.9: This will be removed in 1.0. Use the native shutil.which() instead