Running python script (importing spacy) from Java using Runtime.exec

I'm having this problem. I have a Python script doing some semantic similarity. This script include the import spacy sentence. This script have a method and two parameters. When I run this script in my terminal, everything goes well.

import spacy
import sys

# Create your models here.
class Clustering():
    nlp=None
    def __init__(self):
        self.nlp = spacy.load("es_core_news_md")
                
    def process_text(self, text):
        ...
        return " ".join(result)
    
    def find_similarity(self, text1, text2):
        fixedText1 = self.process_text(text1)
        fixedText2 = self.process_text(text2)
        
        doc1 = self.nlp(fixedText1)
        doc2 = self.nlp(fixedText2)
        
        print(doc1.similarity(doc2))
    
if __name__ == '__main__':
    clus = Clustering('es', 'md')
    clus.find_similarity(sys.argv[2],sys.argv[3])

This is how i run the script

python semanticsimilarity.py find_similarity 'El perro se salió del pozo' 'El banano se salió del pozo'

However, when I run it in Java:

Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("python semanticsimilarity.py find_similarity 'El perro se salió del pozo' 'El banano se salió del pozo'");
p.waitFor();

I get this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "semanticsimilarity.py", line 9, in <module>
    import spacy
ImportError: No module named spacy

Is there any way to move around this? I think java is trying to run this inside the JVM or something, I dont know.

Thank you.

most likely to do with ENV variables - PATH , LD_LIBRARY_PATH and PYTHONPATH. Set them for the original java start or use a shell script wrapper on python command to set them explicitly

grab the ENV values from terminal where the script works echo PATH=$PATH ; echo PYTHONPATH =$PYTHONPATH ; echo LD_LIBRARY_PATH =$LD_LIBRARY_PATH ;

Option-1 Set in your profile

export PATH=
export PYTHONPATH=
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=

Option-2 Create a wrapper script
wrapSymSim.sh

export PATH=
export PYTHONPATH=
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=

python semanticsimilarity.py "$@"

call this in your java

Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("wrapSymSim.sh find_similarity 'El perro se salió del pozo' 'El banano se salió del pozo'");
p.waitFor();

Your Python script depends on variables set up by your command line shell. The setup suggested by @PrasadU should work, or you could use ProcessBuilder class to the set same set of dependent variables for Python.

As your normal command line shell already has the setup, another approach is to simply launch your normal SHELL first and let that to launch your Python script - as that is exactly what you are really doing in your normal script launch.

So if you use Windows CMD.EXE or Linux BASH say, one of these may work as-is:

Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("/bin/bash -c \"python semanticsimilarity.py find_similarity 'El perro se salió del pozo' 'El banano se salió del pozo'\"");

OR

Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("CMD.EXE /c \"python semanticsimilarity.py find_similarity 'El perro se salió del pozo' 'El banano se salió del pozo'\"");