Getting subprocess.call() output into a string?

[Tobiah]

I am not sure how to capture the output of a command
using subprocess without creating a temp file. I was
trying this:

import StringIO
import subprocess

file = StringIO.StringIO()

subprocess.call("ls", stdout = file)

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 6, in ?
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.4/subprocess.py", line 413, in call
return Popen(*args, **kwargs).wait()
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.4/subprocess.py", line 534, in __init__
(p2cread, p2cwrite,
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.4/subprocess.py", line 840, in _get_handles
c2pwrite = stdout.fileno()
AttributeError: StringIO instance has no attribute 'fileno'

So how do I get the output into a string?

I thought that the idea of StringIO was that it could be
used where a file was expected.

Thanks,

Toby
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

[David]

On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 10:36 PM, Tobiah <to**@tobiah.orgwrote:

I am not sure how to capture the output of a command
using subprocess without creating a temp file. I was
trying this:

import StringIO
import subprocess

file = StringIO.StringIO()

subprocess.call("ls", stdout = file)

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 6, in ?
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.4/subprocess.py", line 413, in call
return Popen(*args, **kwargs).wait()
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.4/subprocess.py", line 534, in __init__
(p2cread, p2cwrite,
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.4/subprocess.py", line 840, in _get_handles
c2pwrite = stdout.fileno()
AttributeError: StringIO instance has no attribute 'fileno'

So how do I get the output into a string?

I thought that the idea of StringIO was that it could be
used where a file was expected.

For basic file-like read and write. But it won't provide a file handle
since there is no 'real' file. Also, from 2.3.9 File Objects:
"File-like objects which do not have a real file descriptor should not
provide this method!"

You should use the PIPE subprocess argument to capture output. From
the tutorial:

6.8.3.1 Replacing /bin/sh shell backquote
output=`mycmd myarg`
==>
output = Popen(["mycmd", "myarg"], stdout=PIPE).communicate()[0]

[Tobiah]

On Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:36:11 -0700, Tobiah wrote:

I am not sure how to capture the output of a command
using subprocess without creating a temp file. I was

Sorry, I jumped into a secondary level of the
docs, and didn't see it all. I guess I can
use communicate() to get the output.

Still, about StringIO...

trying this:

import StringIO
import subprocess

file = StringIO.StringIO()

subprocess.call("ls", stdout = file)

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 6, in ?
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.4/subprocess.py", line 413, in call
return Popen(*args, **kwargs).wait()
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.4/subprocess.py", line 534, in __init__
(p2cread, p2cwrite,
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.4/subprocess.py", line 840, in _get_handles
c2pwrite = stdout.fileno()
AttributeError: StringIO instance has no attribute 'fileno'

So how do I get the output into a string?

I thought that the idea of StringIO was that it could be
used where a file was expected.

Thanks,

Toby
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

[David]

>

Still, about StringIO...

The module description says you can use it to read and write strings
as files, not that you can use strings *everywhere* you can use files.

In your specific case, StringIO doesn't work, because the stdout
redirection takes place at the operating system level (which uses real
file handles), rather than in a python library (for which StringIO
would probably work).

David.

[Nick Stinemates]

On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 11:16:01PM +0200, David wrote:

Still, about StringIO...

The module description says you can use it to read and write strings
as files, not that you can use strings *everywhere* you can use files.

In your specific case, StringIO doesn't work, because the stdout
redirection takes place at the operating system level (which uses real
file handles), rather than in a python library (for which StringIO
would probably work).

David.
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

Just a note to all of those who are interested.

I have yet to get this to work properly for an app which runs indefinitely and you want to read the output at a specified interval. Right now the only way I can read is if the _close() method has been called.

Anyway, I wrote a wrapper around it so I could easily change the
implementation if I could ever find a better solution. Here's my code:
===========================
import subprocess
import os
import select

class ProcessMonitor:
def __init__(self):
self.__process = None
self.__stdin = None
self.__stdout = None

def _create(self, process):
self.__process = subprocess.Popen(process, stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, close_fds=True)
self.__stdin = self.__process.stdout

self.__stdout = self.__process.stdout
def _close(self):
os.kill(self.__process.pid,9)

def _listen(self):
"""
get from stdout
"""
return "".join(self.__stdout.readlines())

def _listen2(self):
"""
My attempt at trying different things.
"""
inp, out = self.__process.communicate("")
print out
--
Nick Stinemates (ni**@stinemates.org)
http://nick.stinemates.org