run sikuli from command line

Do you mean prompts for user input?

Do you mean prompts for user input?

yes input the path to the images

So something like this?

path1 = raw_input('Enter path 1: ')
path2 = raw_input('Enter path 2: ')

print path1 == path2

I'd like to return the result to the python program that calls it providing the input paths(2) and result(1)
Is that possible?

I am not sure I understand. In the above way you can use the result of the evaluation "path1 == path2" as you wish as it return True or False.

So you can assign it to another variable like that:

result = path1 == path2

if result == True:
    print "result is True"
elif result == False:
    print "result is False"

I want to run it as part of a test automation test stream where I have a list od image paths that I send to sikuli as above and write pass or fail in the same list alongside the pairs that fail and then keep processing until end of file/list - its part of a map site that needs to reflect the originating map from a custodian but we are allowed to render it using a different file format

I'm sorry but I think I lost you here as I am not sure what exactly are you asking.

your last comment makes sense but if I call this as a function and I send 3 args - 2 as the file paths and the third one as the result of the compare
 1. what would the call look like
2. what would I get as the third arg(what woulkd be returned?)

Generally, what you ask can look like this (if I understand your question correctly):

path1 = "C:\\temp"
path2 = "C:\\temp"

compareResult = path1 == path2

def someFunction(arg1, arg2, arg3):
    print arg1
    print arg2
    print arg3

    #some other logic...

#usage
someFunction(path1, path2, compareResult)

However I really struggle to understand why would you want something like that as it's not a very good practice. It will make more sense to evaluate the comparison between the two paths inside the same function rather than passing the comparison result together with paths.

can you outline the best practice by showing me the code? don't understnad waht you mean...

I meant something this:

def comparePaths(arg1, arg2):
    return arg1 == arg2

def someFunction(arg1, arg2):
    #call comparePath() function from here when needed

If you could expand on how to code it being used on command line then I'm pretty sure you've answered the question

Assume the below code is stored in file named "testFile.py"

import sys

path1 = sys.argv[1]
path2 = sys.argv[2]

def comparePaths(arg1, arg2):
    return arg1 == arg2

def someFunction(arg1, arg2):
    print comparePaths(arg1,arg2)

    #some other logic...

someFunction(path1, path2)

Then from command line you can run it like this:
testFile.py "C:\temp" "C:\temp2"