Giving Input to a Python .exe from VBA

I have a project where I want I am running a Python executable from VBA. What I would like to do is the following:

• 1. In Excel open an Interface that lets the user select some data (filepaths etc.)
• 2. Somehow feed the input data to the Exe.

Right I am using Tkinter to open an Interface for the inputs. However my skills with tkinter are not that great and I feel it makes my programm slow.

I think I can figure out part 1.
Is there a way of doing this?
My only idea would be to not convert my Python scripts into an executable and calling the script from VBA which would make passing data to it easier (i think)

Any help/tips are appreciated, Thanks!

My VBA code looks something like this: (this probably wont help much..)

Sub RunPython()

Dim objShell As Object
Dim PythonExe, PythonScript As String
    
    Set objShell = VBA.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")

    PythonExe = """C:\your_path\Python\Python38\python.exe"""
    PythonScript = "C:\your_path\from_vba.py"
    
    objShell.Run PythonExe & PythonScript
    
End Sub

One sloppy idea I had is to write the Input data to a txt file and let the Python exe read from there. This would avoid the usage of Tkinter atleast. I know learning tkinter by heart would be the best option but I am struggling with the OO programming which is appearently needed to use Tkinter properly.

The best choice comes down to how much data you need to parse and if you want to manually call python in some instances.

Command Line Approach

If you wanted to do the command line approach, then what you have is mostly correct, except you didn't include a space between python.exe and the python command. The line:

objShell.Run PythonExe & PythonScript

translates to: "C:\your_path\Python\Python38\python.exe"C:\your_path\from_vba.py

A slightly cleaner and easier to maintain approach may be to put it in 1 x string instead such as:

PythonScript = """c:\python_path\python.exe"" ""c:\python_script\from_vba.py"" --input1 ""input1 value"" --input2 ""input 2 value"""

Or you could put each component into an array and join it back to a single string with " " as the separator

With this approach, you can then use the python module argparse to read these arguments and process accordingly

INI File Approach

If you have a lot of inputs to parse, then command line can become messy very quickly and instead I'd go with you suggestion of a .TXT file, excpet use a .INI file, which is more structured than a .TXT file.

There's example VB code for reading/writing .INI files here.

Python module configParser can be used to read the .INI file in a dictionary like object

The benefits of this approach are:

• Fields can be added / removed with less risk of breaking your code
• More complex data can be provided
• Bi-directional data can be parsed. For example, you could have the Python script modify the .INI file with the last execution result (success, failure, etc). The VBA form could then read the .INI file and display it to the user, which provides a more seamless user experience.