Python: execute an external program
June 06, 2009 18:31:44 Last update: June 25, 2012 12:37:35
You can use the
However, the path to the executable contains a space character, the
Python doc recommends the use of the
The subprocess module provides more powerful facilities for spawning new processes and retrieving their results; using that module is preferable to using this function.
For example, using wget to get the google home page:
or
system call from the os module to execute an external program:
>>> import os >>> os.system(the_command_line_string)
However, the path to the executable contains a space character, the
system call treats the strings after the first space as arguments, causing an error.
Python doc recommends the use of the
subprocess module:
The subprocess module provides more powerful facilities for spawning new processes and retrieving their results; using that module is preferable to using this function.
For example, using wget to get the google home page:
>>> from subprocess import Popen, PIPE >>> (out, err) = Popen(['wget', '-O', '-', 'http://www.google.com'], stdout=PIPE).communicate() --2009-06-06 13:59:39-- http://www.google.com/ Resolving www.google.com... 208.69.36.230, 208.69.36.231 Connecting to www.google.com|208.69.36.230|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: unspecified [text/html] Saving to: `STDOUT' [ <=> ] 4,993 --.-K/s in 0.06s 2009-06-06 13:59:40 (78.8 KB/s) - `-' saved [4993] >>> print out
or
>>> import subprocess >>> subprocess.call(['curl', '-o', 'google.html', 'http://www.google.com']) % Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed 100 12446 0 12446 0 0 52923 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 116k 0 >>>
