Summary — Running Code from the Command Line

Summary of commands

In the preceding command line tutorial, you learned how to execute the following commands:

ls, which lists the contents of a directory,
cd, which changes your working directory,
pwd, which prints your working (current) directory,
open / start, which opens a file (on Mac or Windows, respectively),
touch, which creates a new file with a specified extension or file type,
mkdir, which makes (creates) a new directory,
rm, which permanently removes a file,
rmdir, which permanently removes an empty directory,
rm -r, which permanently removes a directory and its contents (without confirmation), and
rm -ri, which permanently removes a directory and its contents (with confirmation).

Now, you can use the commands you learned in this tutorial to run Python code on your computer. To do so, follow these instructions:

Save your Python code with a .py extension. Note the location of this file on your computer.
Open a shell window. Use the command line to navigate to the directory in which your Python file is saved.
Run the Python file by typing python, followed by the full name of the Python file. For instance, to run a file named test.py that lives in your working directory, you would execute the command python test.py. (Note: For Windows users running Git Bash, you should instead execute the command winpty python test.py to run your Python file.)
In the shell window, you’ll receive the output of your Python code. (Note: Remember that any changes made to your Python file — for example, those made through your text editor — need to be saved in order to be reflected when executing that Python file through the command line.)