Environment Variables when python script run by cron

Instead of executing the whole ~/.profile what I'd do is move the variables that must be shared between your cron jobs and the account that has the profile, then I'd source these both in ~/.profile and in the cron job.

The last attempt you show in the question is not properly formatted. The user id should be coming right after the scheduling information, but you've added the sourcing of the profile before the user id, which surely cannot work.

Here's an example setup that I've tested here:

*/1 * * * * someuser . /tmp/t10/setenv && /usr/bin/python /tmp/t10/test.py

I've set it to execute every minute for testing purposes. Replace someuser with something that makes sense. The /tmp/t10/setenv script I used had this:

export FOO=foovalueexport BAR=barvalue

The /tmp/t10/test.py file had this:

import osprint os.environ["FOO"], os.environ["BAR"]

My cron emails me the output of the scripts it runs. I got an email with this output:

foovalue barvalue

You can set the env variable inline:

* * * * * root ENV_VAR=VALUE /usr/bin/python3.5 /code/scraper.py

Another way is use honcho that you can pass a file with env variables.

honcho -e /path/to/.env run /code/scraper.py

You can specify your two environment variables by this:

* * * * * root env A=1 B=2 /usr/bin/python3.5 /code/scraper.py

env is a system program that runs a specified program with additional variables:

$ env A=1 B=2 /bin/sh -c 'echo $A$B'  # or just 'sh': would search in $PATH12