How to use Python variables in Google Colab terminal command?

Question

I have a cell with this content:

import os
os.mkdir('123')
name = '123'
!rm -r name

I want to pass the value of the variable name to the last line. How can I do this?

korakot · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-11T00:56:08.850

67

Try $. It will substitute the python variable.

!rm -r $name

You may need to use $name\.txt or {name}.txt in some cases.

edited Nov 11 '19 at 00:56

answered Oct 17 '18 at 13:23

korakot

This does not work with the following command `!git clone https://$GITHUB_AUTH@github.com/$user/my-repo.git`, where `user` is a Python variable and `$GITHUB_AUTH` corresponds to `os.environ['GITHUB_AUTH']`, which is correctly replaced with the corresponding value in the command above, as opposed to the variable `user`, which is replaced with an empty string. – nbro Oct 15 '19 at 13:42
11

@nbro I would recommend using quotes in your shell command: `!git clone "https://"$GITHUB_AUTH"@github.com/"$user"/my-repo.git"`. I use similar command for managing git and files from buckets and it works perfectly for me :) – Jeremy Cochoy Dec 26 '19 at 12:14
1

and you may also consider adding quotes around your $variableName in case it has spaces or other chars which will break the command. e.g. `!rm -r "$name"` – user566245 Nov 13 '20 at 18:53

score 10 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 10 '21 at 09:32

10

Use {}.

myvar = "/test"
!cd {myvar}

edited Dec 10 '21 at 09:32

ZygD

answered Jul 23 '21 at 11:52

AgathoSAreS

Thanks for edit, now it looks even nicer. Btw. the #scrollTo is broken. You have to scroll yourself to find the source. – AgathoSAreS Dec 20 '21 at 14:36

2 Answers2